Moonstone

Moonstone, Romans theorized, with its unearthly shimmer, was formed from frozen moonlight. This appealing gem variety does indeed shine with a cool lunar light, but it is the mineral feldspar – quite terrestrial in origin. The shimmer, which is called schiller or adularescence, is caused by the planar growth of two different types of feldspar with different refractive indexes.

Moonstones come in a variety of colors. The body color can range from colorless to gray, brown, yellow, green, or pink. The clarity ranges from transparent to translucent. The best moonstone has a bright blue or silver sheen, perfect clarity, and a colorless crystalline body color. The type used in Spencer’s carved moonstone jewelry are from Sri Lanka, known as Ceylon by old folks.

Other rare types of moonstone are Rainbow moonstone, blue flash and African blue moonstone.

Says Spencer, “I love to carve ‘faces’ in moonstone because they light up details that seem to shimmer above the surface of the gem. It seems like I’m carving light, not stone, and so has become my favorite carving material.”