This is 65 feet underground in a mine at Lightning Ridge. The opal bearing areas are hard clay which lend themselves to easy carving if you can do it.
The miner whose mining lease this is began carving a chain into the wall of his mine during smoko (morning tea/meal break) one day. This chain is just visible on the far right side of #1.
Over the next few weeks he begins carving native fauna.
From there he went on to bigger and better things and now his main income is from the tourists coming to see his work.
He has had no training in carving or art, it’s simply a God given talent he has.
Oh and for those of you in the UK the artist/miner is a Pom.
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