Lightning Strikes Boulder Opal Necklace | Christine Keller

  Lightning Strikes

One-of-a-Kind Boulder Opal & Sterling Silver Wearable Art

Collected Work — Sold for $1,295

Sometimes a stone already contains the beginning of a story.

The extraordinary Boulder Opal at the heart of Lightning Strikes is filled with movement—rust, ochre, deep earth tones and sudden veins of brilliant green and blue that seem to flash through the stone like light breaking across a landscape.

I didn't want to simply frame a stone like this. I wanted to enter its landscape.

Every element of the sterling silver tree was hand-cut by me, its trunk and branches created to travel across the surface of the Boulder Opal rather than hide it. The silver becomes part of the scene, following the movement already present within the stone. A small Green Onyx rests near the base of the tree, adding one more point of rich natural color.

Even the reverse became part of the composition. I cut an opening into the sterling silver backplate to reveal another section of the Boulder Opal, surrounded it with texture, and continued the hand-fabricated silver details around the stone.

Rather than placing such a substantial piece on an ordinary chain, I created it to hang from a sterling silver neck ring, allowing the pendant to sit as the sculptural statement it was intended to be.

Lightning Strikes is bold, organic and unapologetically large—a piece of wearable art built around a stone that deserved nothing less.

Created once. Collected once. Never duplicated.

Product Details

Name: Lightning Strikes
Primary Stone: Boulder Opal
Accent Stone: Green Onyx
Metal: Sterling Silver
Neckpiece: Sterling silver neck ring
Silverwork: Hand-cut and hand-fabricated sterling silver tree and setting
Reverse: Textured sterling silver with cutout revealing the Boulder Opal
Artist: Christine Keller
Original: One-of-a-kind
Status: Collected Work — Sold
Original Selling Price: $1,295

Wellness, Healing & Symbolism

Boulder Opal has traditionally been associated with creativity, individuality, emotional expression and inspiration. Because precious opal forms naturally within its ironstone host, Boulder Opal can also symbolize the meeting of earth and light—something extraordinary emerging from something ancient and grounded.

Green Onyx is traditionally associated with balance, confidence and inner strength.

The tree carries symbolism across cultures as a representation of life, growth, resilience and the connection between earth and sky. In Lightning Strikes, its roots and branches become inseparable from the landscape within the stone.

Silver has long been symbolically associated with intuition, reflection and the moon.

Stone meanings and symbolism are based on historical and metaphysical traditions and are offered for inspiration and personal reflection.

Collector's Note

Lightning Strikes is part of the Chrizart Creations archive of collected works. Sold for $1,295, it represents Christine Keller's larger-scale sculptural work in which an exceptional natural stone becomes both the inspiration and the landscape for the finished piece.

The original has been collected, and the design will not be reproduced.