Birthstones
Synthesis
Art Portfolio
I created 2 pieces for my visuals in this project. My initial idea surrounds birthstones and their meanings, ancient and modern, and how they actually apply to me and the people in my orbit. What I did was I chose about 25 people that I am around on a daily/semi-daily basis and surveyed them. The first piece is literally based off of all of those peoples birth month, and the second is based off of which stone they chose specifically for what it represents. The idea of this was for my end product to visually show the difference between what the universe says my friends need, and what they actually say they need/would want to carry them through life internally eternally. The pieces blocked off in each piece correspond to each other, so wherever your piece is on the first visual is in the same place on the second visual. The people that have more relevance in my life, I purposely gave them the bigger pieces. So people like my mom, aunts, and Apollo teachers have the bigger spots. Some peoples stones actually ended up staying the same, while others were the exact opposite. I didn't know what the result would be once they were all fit together, so some pieces have the same stone right next to each other. In the end, I had some pieces 'left over' so I just painted them in black. I wanted the black to help funnel where your eyes go when you first look at the piece, but it ended up just running in with the rest of the pieces.
English
What I chose to focus on my for my English portion of this project was the modern day meanings of each birthstone and what they represent. As I worked on each color of my art pieces, I put swatches down to turn into a color key for the piece along with their descriptions. The color key is for both pieces, but leans more toward the first piece solely because for the second piece, the people in my orbit chose them based off of the ancient description.
Self in the Modern World
For self in the modern world, ironically, I focused on the ancient meanings and histories of each birthstone. So the document below has brief descriptions of each birthstone and which culture it was mostly associated with. The fusion of these birthstones all together is physically represented in my art pieces.
Annotated Bibliography:
“Birthstones by Day, Hour, and Season.” Your Birthstones by Month, Color & Sign, birthstones.me/birthstones-by-month/by-day-hour/.
What was interesting about this website was that it gives birthstones by the 4 seasons, the day of the week you were born on, and the hour of the day you were born within. Like the others, it’s not based off of anything actually factual but I thought it was cool that that was even a thing. Even though having all these options kind of defeats the purpose.
“Birthstone Origins.” American Gem Society, 2019, www.americangemsociety.org/page/birthstones.
This website was the one I got to juice the most information out of more than any of the others. It has a ton of insight for not only each birthstone, but the multiple birthstones that are given for each month. (ancient, modern, and the ‘options’) Outside of birthstones, it also had a lot of info about jewelry and jewelers in general which shifts your perspective on how other people view them.
Cirelli, Cheryl. “History of Birthstones & How They Got Their Meaning.” LoveToKnow, LoveToKnow Corp, jewelry.lovetoknow.com/History_of_Birthstones.
What I liked most about this link and what made it stand out apart from the others was that it explained the gemstones within the Bible and their ties to the Apostles. It also shows the birthstones in correlation to the foundation stones of the new Jerusalem based off of the Roman calendar which all ended up being essentially irrelevant to my project, but was very interesting to look into and helped me understand even deeper how complex the idea of birthstones really was.
“How Well Do You Know Your Birthstone Gemology? - IGS.” International Gem Society, www.gemsociety.org/article/birth-stones/.
This link was helpful because it had a ton of information all in one place to read. It compares (or shows) the modern vs ancient meanings of each birthstone, including where you can find them globally and who used them for certain purposes during their time.
Long, Kat. “Why the Man Who Popularized Birthstones in America Came to Loathe His Creation.” Atlas Obscura, Atlas Obscura, 27 Jan. 2016, www.atlasobscura.com/articles/why-the-man-who-popularized-birthstones-in-america-came-to-loathe-his-creation.
I thought this website had some unique information that I didn’t actually end up really using for my project but it was cool just to know in general, especially in building context. It tells the timeline of George Frederick Kunz, the vice president of Tiffany & Company, who wrote a book about gemstones and their supposed power. He ended up regretting it, however, because it had so much of an influence that a jewelers company later released the now very popular list of 12 birthstones.
Team, UncommonGoods Blog, et al. “Birthstones By Month: What Do They Mean? -.” The Goods, 14 Feb. 2018, www.uncommongoods.com/blog/2018/birthstones-by-month-what-do-they-mean/.
This website was one of the ones I used initially to gather the general information about each birthstone and what they represent or mean. What I found unique about this website was that for each birthstone, it displayed pictures of each birthstone in different pieces of jewelry and it was really pretty.
“Birthstones by Day, Hour, and Season.” Your Birthstones by Month, Color & Sign, birthstones.me/birthstones-by-month/by-day-hour/.
What was interesting about this website was that it gives birthstones by the 4 seasons, the day of the week you were born on, and the hour of the day you were born within. Like the others, it’s not based off of anything actually factual but I thought it was cool that that was even a thing. Even though having all these options kind of defeats the purpose.
“Birthstone Origins.” American Gem Society, 2019, www.americangemsociety.org/page/birthstones.
This website was the one I got to juice the most information out of more than any of the others. It has a ton of insight for not only each birthstone, but the multiple birthstones that are given for each month. (ancient, modern, and the ‘options’) Outside of birthstones, it also had a lot of info about jewelry and jewelers in general which shifts your perspective on how other people view them.
Cirelli, Cheryl. “History of Birthstones & How They Got Their Meaning.” LoveToKnow, LoveToKnow Corp, jewelry.lovetoknow.com/History_of_Birthstones.
What I liked most about this link and what made it stand out apart from the others was that it explained the gemstones within the Bible and their ties to the Apostles. It also shows the birthstones in correlation to the foundation stones of the new Jerusalem based off of the Roman calendar which all ended up being essentially irrelevant to my project, but was very interesting to look into and helped me understand even deeper how complex the idea of birthstones really was.
“How Well Do You Know Your Birthstone Gemology? - IGS.” International Gem Society, www.gemsociety.org/article/birth-stones/.
This link was helpful because it had a ton of information all in one place to read. It compares (or shows) the modern vs ancient meanings of each birthstone, including where you can find them globally and who used them for certain purposes during their time.
Long, Kat. “Why the Man Who Popularized Birthstones in America Came to Loathe His Creation.” Atlas Obscura, Atlas Obscura, 27 Jan. 2016, www.atlasobscura.com/articles/why-the-man-who-popularized-birthstones-in-america-came-to-loathe-his-creation.
I thought this website had some unique information that I didn’t actually end up really using for my project but it was cool just to know in general, especially in building context. It tells the timeline of George Frederick Kunz, the vice president of Tiffany & Company, who wrote a book about gemstones and their supposed power. He ended up regretting it, however, because it had so much of an influence that a jewelers company later released the now very popular list of 12 birthstones.
Team, UncommonGoods Blog, et al. “Birthstones By Month: What Do They Mean? -.” The Goods, 14 Feb. 2018, www.uncommongoods.com/blog/2018/birthstones-by-month-what-do-they-mean/.
This website was one of the ones I used initially to gather the general information about each birthstone and what they represent or mean. What I found unique about this website was that for each birthstone, it displayed pictures of each birthstone in different pieces of jewelry and it was really pretty.