The Art of Balance

What do you do when you are working with a stone that is "lopsided"- weighed more to one side? We did some tests and if we simply hung it (I wanted to tab set it on a copper back), it would hang on a slant.
So here's where it pays to be married to someone who is not only an artist, but a mathematician!
Vickie came up with this:

NO, this is not aboriginal art, but rather a backer plate design to balance the off- balance stone. Did I mention that Vickie is an abstract artist?
Here's the stone sitting on the copper backer plate:

I came up with the idea of creating a copper "tube" at the neck to hold the cord and now we simply had to distress the copper a bit and fold the tabs and the tube to produce the finished piece.

As you can see, it hangs absolutely vertically and this is how it looks from the back.

We added a beautiful, premium Greek leather cord (that picks up the stone's colour perfectly) and hand made copper clasps and after we distress the back copper a little more, it will be for sale in the shop for $85 Canadian.
I love solving these types of problems- especially when you have someone around to "do the math"!
The stone is set nice and solid and the colours and striking patterns are even more vivid in person.
It is interesting to note that this Mexican Crazy Lace just seems to go perfectly with copper and it was most likely collected near a copper deposit. In fact, it has a tiny area of oxidized native copper in it that creates a tiny bright green highlight.
Hope to see you soon!

P.S. I will be doing a blog post next week on our recent day trips to give you an idea of what you can do and see if you come to the Digby area so check back later!