Jade

If one were to peruse all the myths and lore surrounding jade, one would be hard-pressed to consider it a mere stone.

After China, no other culture has shown as much attachment to jade as those of Mesoamerica. The Olmec, almost three millenniums ago, loved the translucent dark blues, the Maya, a thousand years later, loved the bright greens - quetzalitzli- stone the color of quetzal feathers, just as certain Song emperors adored the white jades.

Rustic bench, blue jadeite. 2020.

The jade tradition in Mesoamerica disappeared with the Spanish conquest and its attendant miseries, to the extent that even the knowledge of the original source of antique jade in Mesoamerica was lost until 1976, when quarry sites were found at the Motagua river valley, at the border between Guatemala and Honduras. Since then more sources of the stone have been found along the Motagua tributaries. The old varieties of jade precious to Mesoamericans are now making a reappearance.

Retro phone, black jadeite.2020

I look upon this sudden acces to fine jadeite as a lifetime's fulfillment. It is as if I had been preparing myself patiently for decades, learning to cut stone, in order to engage jade directly as the basis for creation. The question is, will the enthusiasm overpower the talent? We hope not!

Noguchi once mentioned that stone is a very convenient material to carve, because since most cultures have worked stone, it's easy to compare ones's work. However one compares though, one is also necessarily led to the conclusion that as a sculptor, one may never have either the resources to carve, say, an Egyptian obelisk, or th talent to carve like Bernini.

Why ever would one want so? None of them exhausted the posibilities inherent in stone.

Eduardo Olbés

Tepoztlán, 2015

Sidereal Cetacean, black jadeite with volcanic rock base.2017.