An Amethyst in the Rough (and the Return of a Gift, in Tribute)

UPDATE: Now available in NFT Showroom, in ONE edition.

Sometimes you just know something is there, but “mining it” is a journey.

Over on NFT Showroom, I do a series called Fractal Glassine, but I had not considered gemstones because even though I know that the fractal geometry that underlies the natural universe also is involved in the building of crystals, I am more concerned with living things that I find popping up in the fractal art space, and only occasionally do fractal glass.

However, an amethyst is an entirely different proposition.

I miss my piano teacher. She was my teacher, and my friend. She passed away of cancer in 2014.

One of the gifts she gave me beside the ability to play the piano on a high level was an amethyst in the rough that she had broken off of her own bigger block at her home … I was her star student, a crystal off the healing block.

She never had any children. I filled that gap for her, to the day she died. I always told her that her musical grandchildren were many, as I became a piano teacher and children's choir director after her.

So, although I'm not huge on jewelry, I will always pay attention to an amethyst in the rough.

You can sort of see that about to happen in the starter fractal Apophysis gave me …

… but I went off in an entirely different direction because I didn't see it yet. Like I said, I do work in fractal glass, if you will, so that's what I was thinking and ended up here:

… but that wasn't quite enough, even though it would have been remarkable to go through the palette to bring that light refraction out! Then, this did not please me either, although I worked around it for a while...

So, I started over, and then my finger slipped on the keys... and in in all the magic of a millions and millions of strokes working on that slip, I had a topaz in the rough!

I like topaz, don't get me wrong! But, immediately my mind went to all the palettes of purple, and back to my beloved teacher and friend … maybe, just maybe I could bring the memory out of the stone … and, there it is, the result of just the right palette at last found and applied.

Linda Anne Kotcher, my music teacher, was also a fabulous painter. She would be intrigued to know that I eventually followed her into the visual arts as well … that I made a tribute to her of a fractal rendering of the gemstone she gave me... and that I, too, have found my way into an art gallery.

Grief is also all the things you never get to tell and show a mentor of how their teaching and nurturing is still helping you grow.

However, bringing beauty and inspiration to others is my way of NOT letting her legacy die!