Arts & Entertainment
Bling and Other Things (Liz, Jackie O) On the Table at Friends of the Library Lecture
Famous jewelry will be discussed and exotic jewelry offered for sale at the Friends of the Library event featuring explorer Bonita Chamberlin.
Ever wanted to join Indiana Jones on his adventures of derring-do? Or dreamed of discovering a magnificent treasure cave of fabulous jewels?
How about seeing and hearing a real person who has explored the entire length of the Amazon, kayaked the Indus, traveled the famed Silk Road by camel, and is the first woman to explore Afghanistan’s famous Lapis Lazuli mines? Not to mention dressing as an Afghan man, charting previously unmapped territories, and becoming such an important U.S. Department of Defense resource that the Taliban issued a fatwa on her life.
Bonita Chamberlin on Wednesday discusses the "Legends and Lore of Famous Gems" in a presentation for the Friends of the .
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A generous selection of hand-crafted rings, necklaces, earrings, bracelets and pendants featuring amethysts, sapphires, topazes, rubies, garnets, jaspers, and other gemstones, as well as lake-cultured pearls, will be on display both before and after Chamberlin's lecture.
Chamberlin told Patch her presentation will focus “on the jewelry of the rich and famous, including Elizabeth Taylor, Queen Elizabeth II, the wives of Arab sheiks, the Duchess of Windsor, and Jackie Kennedy Onassis.”
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Birthstones and their meanings also will be a part of the lecture, she said.
Besides being an explorer, Chamberlin is a renowned geologist, author and speaker who, prior to the fatwa, spent more than 30 years working in Afghanistan facilitating business and economic development. In the mid-eighties Chamberlin was asked by the Mujahideen to assist in the mining of gemstones dislodged by Soviet bombs.
By 2002 she had purchased tools and mining equipment for villages in Afghanistan’s Nuristan province. The jewelry mined, designed and created by the villagers has developed into an industry allowing the people to become self-supporting.
All items sold through the Afghan Jewelry Project sponsor schools, teacher training, health care, an orphanage, and reforestation and irrigation programs in Nuristan.
The jewelry will be on display beginning at 6 p.m. and following the 7 p.m. lecture. The Rancho Santa Margarita Library is located at 30902 La Promesa. For further information, call 949-459-6094.
