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In-depth

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Contents Feature - Jade Rock hard Seeing green Birth of rock Jade in Mesoamerica Golden opportunities Rockhounding Cartographer's table Just the facts Games CG vault Re:sources

Sculptors, such as Lyle Sopel or this artisan, Deborah Wilson in her studio in Vernon, British Columbia, must learn to navigate jade's hard properties to render polished and delicate pieces from its fibrous, compact mass. (Photo: Brooke McDonald)

CG: What are the qualities of jade that draw you to it?

LS: The translucency, the colour, the shine, the lustre. I think that I was originally drawn to jade because of its historical significance. There's a lot of mystical qualities and spiritual connections to the stone, and that's very interesting to me.

CG: What was your initial reaction the first time you started working with jade?

LS: The first time I heard the word 'jade' it was just so familiar to me, it was as if it was my own name. It was like a soul connection, honestly. When I first started [sculpting] it was amazement — the idea that the stone was translucent and so beautiful when it was wet and so beautiful to work with. It was my first opportunity to work with any kind of a gem stone and I just immediately fell in love with it.

CG: How does jade challenge you?

LS: The hardness has to be it. That's the biggest thing as an artist to get over. You're constantly challenged to create whatever your idea might be in the material. It took me a number of years before I was capable enough to express myself openly with the stone.

CG: What did you do to overcome the hardness?

LS: I had to find somebody that could make diamond tools and then I had to instruct them on what kind of material I was carving and what hardness it was. Then I had to come up with a method of polishing. I use a diamond powder that I mix with Vaseline and floor wax. That gives me kind of a pasty substance and I use that on a felt wheel. That originated with the idea of using diamonds as a polishing compound, but how could I apply it to the surface? My original thought was lipstick. I knew lipstick had a pasty, oily texture to it, so I used to use that and I mixed the diamond powder with lipstick. I'd get the weirdest looks in drug stores when I'd try to buy lipstick for my polishing compounds!

CG: On a personal level, how do you overcome those challenges in terms of maintaining your patience and precision?

LS: There again, it's overcoming the hardness of the stone and realizing that you can only do so much. The tools will only cut so fast and the surface will only smooth down so quickly, even if you do have the appropriate tools. I think when I was younger, I would be anxious and in a hurry to complete a piece, and also excited when it was complete. So that turned out to be the time when I would most often break a piece. I'd get a delicate thing, and I'd get excited that it's finally done and I'd make some terrible error or drop it or bump it into a tool and I'd chip a corner or break the piece entirely. I got over that through mental control. I just have to bring myself back to a place of stillness or calmness and go forward with a piece. So it became a mental exercise, or a type of meditation.

CG: Many of your sculptures are expressions of wildlife and the natural environment. What is it about this subject matter that is best captured with jade as a medium?

LS: I do like the idea that jade is from the earth and the animals walk the earth. I like that thought. Also jade requires a certain approach to it. In any other medium you can't get that same character — hard line, shiny surface — you can't get that same expression as you can with jade.

CG: You use jade from other parts of the world in your sculptures. How does BC jade compare?

LS: It's really the best nephrite jade in the world. Best in terms of quality and consistency and largeness of pieces. I don't think there's any place in the world that you can get nephrite jade in such large boulders as we can here. The jade is consistent throughout the boulder — it's not fractured or off-colour. I also like to work with other jades that are interesting. I like the black from Australia, just because of its colour. It's just totally black. There's no other colouration in it at all. And I do like Siberian white nephrite that's also very, very beautiful because of its colour.

CG: Do you prefer jade from one BC jade mine over the other?

LS: Jade from the Polar Jade site has got the most vibrant colour and it has really bright, bright chromium green spotting or lines in it. That's an exciting piece of jade to work with because of that. When it's finished, it's very lively and bright and translucent.

CG: You graduated from art school right around the time that the jade industry was coming into its own. How significant have the jade finds in B.C. been to the development of your career?

LS: Absolutely significant. That's how I developed as an artist. I think I wouldn't be the same artist if I didn't have jade as a medium to work. I think I've been very fortunate. I just happened to be very interested in jade when it was available and I was young enough and I was able to develop as a sculptor using a medium. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time. So, if there's any truth to jade being the stone of luck, I've had it.

CG: In B.C. jade prospectors and miners often work closely with the artists. What's that relationship like?

LS: Of course we're different people. It takes different people to do these two different things with the stone. You have to be adventurous and rugged to go out to the mine sites. But that's also what I like. I like the outdoors. I've been to the mine sites many times and I've chosen the rock right from the mountainside.

CG: Does going up to the mine site and seeing the chunk of rock being taken out of the ground help you relate to your medium?

LS: It's like the birth of the rock. That's where it comes from. There's nothing like that, to see the rough rock being torn away from the mountainside. And then you have the first cut and you see the colour inside of it and you think 'that's so beautiful, I could make this or make that.' The idea that it's from the earth is really exciting to me. The nature of the stone is that it's metamorphic and it's been changed from one thing to another thing. The earth made it, it created the stone to be this way. And I just follow along with what the earth has already done. I just take it a little bit further.

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