Inspired by John William Waterhouse's "The Boreas," this strand is made of citrine, flashy and gloomy labradorite, smoky quartz, and spinel, and comes in three sizes depending on your preference. The 60" (which is my favorite length for this particular strand) is the one pictured, but it is also lovely at 50" or 40".

Description:

One of my favorite parts of creating the Waterhouse Collection in 2021 was the opportunity to study his paintings again and discover details I'd never before noticed. With The Boreas, I noticed a color: the palest of yellows scattered in the field. This led to a second discovery: the woman has a daffodil tucked behind her ear, and seems to have picked it in the field through which she's walking. This places her sometime in the early spring of the year, full of wild weather and bursts of sudden color as flowers begin to bloom.

However, the Boreal wind—the god for whom it's named--is associated with winter. At first, I wondered whether Waterhouse got his winds confused, and had meant to call this painting Zephyrus--the wind associated with springtime, which Chaucer himself evokes in the Canterbury Tales ("Whan Zephyrus eek with his swete brethe"), but I've come to think Waterhouse was in fact quite deliberate in his choice of name for this painting. Because, when you consider those daffodils along with the intense gust of wind that buffets the woman, it's hard not to think of those times in early spring where we yearn for warmer weather in absence of it. On those blustery, frigid, and damp days, I've always taken comfort from the not only from the glorious yellow of the daffodils but also from their resilience. In the spring when I created this strand, for instance, I watched all the daffodils I'd planted the the previous fall start to peak their way out of the ground in early February, only to see them trapped under inches of snow a mere two weeks later. I worried for them, but did not need to: they endured and grew with slow and steady ease, and my front yard then (and also now, a year later) an explosion of gorgeous yellows.

With all of these thoughts in mind, I turned to my stones, and remembered that I still had a handful of pale yellow citrine from a custom order, and that they might, just might, look quite lovely alongside the flashy and deep gray labradorite and smoky quartz I'd chosen already. The colors blended beautifully, as they do in the painting, and those dashes of pale yellow in particular are meant to evoke those lovely, resilient daffodils of early spring, and also the fact that no matter how many times we've beheld a particular thing (whether a painting, book, backyard tree, or vista), there will always be something new to discover.

Production time: Each Weird Sister strand is made to order, and ships within four weeks from when the order is placed. Please always feel free to send an inquiry to check on your place in my order queue!