“She sells seashells by the seashore,” is the first thing I want to say when I think of Michal Rothschild. I met her 15 years ago as a painter living and working in the mountains of Jerusalem. I recently met her again and she showed me her latest art project –– an attempt to create crystal wombs so she can grow crystals like the large crystal nuggets she has found buried in mud at the Dead Sea. She calls her wearable art Dead Sea Capsules.
Rothschild started selling bracelets and necklaces featuring Dead Sea diamond crystals at museum shops in Israel –– and also through her website, and the Israel Museum asked if it’s allowed for her to harvest them from the Dead Sea. She wondered if harvesting crystals was sustainable. It put her on an artistic quest.
In looking for the answer, she developed a way with the Israel Geological Survey as a partner, to farm Dead Sea crystals in mini crystal incubators at the Dead Sea: “My quest for getting the answer (if harvesting the salt crystals is sustainable) led me to my on-going artistic research of growing Dead Sea diamonds myself,” she told Green Prophet.
She creates a seed of a crystal inside the “womb” and over time the salty covered chamber sitting in the Dead Sea reveals a mini crystal in the center. You can see the chambers hanging in her studio outside Jerusalem. And below there are photos of the process she invented taking place at the Dead Sea.
Inside each bulb of hanging crystal is a treasure, an embryo of a crystal that is also wearable art: bracelets and necklaces that transmit Dead Sea ions to the body. “It’s kind of a life project and more of an artistic one than a scientific project,” she says.
There is no other salt lake on the planet that has the complete array of ions than what’s found in the Dead Sea, says Rothschild. When you wear her art a tiny part of the jewelry melts into your body. You can wear it and sweat, she notes, and some of the healing ions will be absorbed into your skin.
And wearers take note: you can’t wear this living art in the shower or in the rain. This unique crystal jewelry is an art form in itself carrying, what Rothschild says is an ecological message: “If you don’t take care of it it will disappear like the Dead Sea itself.
“It will last as long as you don’t get it wet. It needs your awareness.”
In ancient times, the Dead Sea was a favorite of King Herod and it was Queen Cleopatra’s beauty secret. People from all over the world, especially people with asthma and skin diseases, come to the Dead Sea for its curative salt, and air. It being so low, means that there is more ozone filtering out UV radiation so it’s hard to get a sunburn making it a safer way for people to soak up the sun.
The salt, minerals and the mud baths are not the only amazing thing about the Dead Sea. Its crystals contain magnesium, calcium, potassium, zinc, bromide, sulfur and strontium. Rothschild understood that when you wear her crystal art, the salt crystal transmits its ions right to your body.
And while it will melt away in the shower or in the rain, this unique crystal jewelry is an art form in itself. It will last as long as you don’t get it wet.
“The crystal farming process from the cruise with the Israel Geological Survey to their research float in the middle of the Dead Sea where I deepen the sack 15m under sea level and left it hanging there for about 2 months.”
Related: Spencer Tunick and the Dead Sea
Rothschild also uses her art to talk about the fact that the Dead Sea is being over-exploited and is dying. Lack of water, and intense industrial sequestration of minerals are the two main reasons why the Dead Sea is shrinking, causing spurious sink holes to pop up overnight.
Being a crystal whisperer is only one of her many talents. Rothschild is a gardener, painter, video art creator and installation artist, and soon to be beekeeper who studied art in New York. Her work can be found on her website, and she is taking custom orders on Dead Sea crystal necklaces (Dead Sea Diamonds) so you can wear a little bit of the Dead Sea mystery year long (they feel a bit witchy) –– just don’t wear them in the rain.
