LizzieDesigns

The winter of 2010 and 2011 brought unusually heavy rains to many parts of Southern California, including the Mojave Desert.  Desserts are funny places.  Most of the time, they appear brown and lifeless.  A person driving from Las Angles to Las Vegas along Interstate I-15 in August will see a brown, baked and lifeless stretch of apparently nothing.  Come back in the spring of the right year and the ground will appear gold or purple or yellow, depending on the type of soil you are looking at and the type of seeds that the wind has carried for the rain to nurse into life.

One of the areas that received far more rain than normal this last winter was the region around the intersection of CA 58 and US 395 known as Kramer Junction.  This region is also known for its outstanding rock collecting.  Last week I had two different occasions to visit the Kramer Junction region.  The first trip I did not take my camera along.  The second trip I took specifically to take photos, although I assure you I came home with some excellent rocks.

There are two benefits of the rains this last winter.  The flowers bloomed and the rocks eroded out of the hillsides.  That I like.

I have been in Southern California about 10 years now, and collecting rocks for much of that time.  I have  only seen one previous spring when the bloom was as spectacular as this spring.  I want to leave you with two things, the photos of the flowers (sorry, no photos of the rocks) and a sincere warning.  In the next week or two the ground vegetation in the Mojave will reach extreme density and height.  The flowers and grasses, which are just starting to really grow, will produce huge unimaginable quantities of seeds.  These seeds will produce a huge rodent and insect population.  The insects will become feed for other animals such as lizards.  But eventually the small animals, rodents and others, will become prey for snakes.  And the snakes, specifically the rattlesnakes will flourish.  With the high and extremely thick vegetation, visibility of the ground will disappear in the next few weeks at a lot of favorite collecting sites.  And this visibility issue will continue through the summer and fall until next winter’s rains knock down the vegetation.  The Mojave will become a far more dangerous place to visit and collect in than normal for several years until nature balances everything out again.  If you choose to go into the desert this year, use extreme caution.  Remember that your visibility is only a fraction of what it normally is.  And that there will be far more snake activity that you are used to.

Final note.  Most people do not think of deserts and fire threats.  However, during a green year like this one, desert fires can be a huge issue.  This summer and next fall there is going to be more fuel on the floor of the desert than we are used to seeing.  This means that we need to be extra careful with fire.  We need to watch things like campfires, smoking, sparks from our vehicles, etc.  We, rock hounds, are not the only users of the desert and we are not the major users.  But we still need to do our part to protect our resource.

I’m leaving the photos untitled.  They were taken April 2, 2011.  The day was partially cloudy with a very strong wind blowing.  not ideal conditions for flower photography.  Still, I hope that you enjoy. . . .

janet and mary lou

Oh yes. . . .clicking on a photo SHOULD make it full screen.  At least it does for me. . . .

Fancy Propeller cut White Topaz.

I recently located this set of three white topaz stones.  The stones are all cut in a fancy propeller cut.  This is a very rare cut.  The center stone of the set is HUGE.  It is photographed in two of the photos setting on a dime.  I am seriously considering purchasing one set of these stones.  There are two complete sets.  Why didn’t I take up oil painting????  This art is just too expensive.  I suppose next week I’ll find a killer set of natural sapphires.

Anyway, this is a really short post, I wanted to share these fabulous stones with you.  Am I going to buy the set?  I’ll leave that question up in the air for right now.  Let’s see. . .. “do I buy silver or topaz . . . silver or topaz. . . .silver or topaz. . . . ”

Fancy Propeller cut White Topaz shown on a dime.

Fancy Propeller cut White Topaz shown on a dime. Side View

Just gotta take one more look . . . .

This Rhodochrosite Pendant is 22x51 mm and is set in sterling silver with a hidden bail. This pendant is NFS

When I go into the studio to work, I usually try to have a plan.  Now, first is commissioned work.  Hey guys, this is pay day we’re talking about.  And for the most part, commissioned work always gets first priority.  But after that, it is generally where the spirit moves me.  I do set goals.  Like limiting 30×40 cabs.  Not that they don’t sell, because they do, but they take a lot of material (silver) and. . well .  .Let’s say that I am “well stocked” at the moment.  So save the new sheet for commissions and give the big stones a well deserved rest.  Another goal recently is to work more with the copper/bronze/brass metal group rather than silver or gold.  There are three reasons for this.  First, the cost of silver is astronomical right now.  And I really can’t afford to replace a whole lot of metal.  Second, copper, bronze and brass are hot right now.  This is the “in” look.  Like I really care what’s “in” or what’s “out”.  But still. it is what people are looking for.  And finally third, it’s a new color to add to the palette.  We’ll get back to the palette thing in a another post so hold that thought. . . you know . . multi task. . . you can do it. . . I know. . .  

Side view of Rhodochrosite pendant. NFS.

So I go into the studio with a rough idea of what I want to do.  But it almost always does not work that way.  I get to the bench, see a stone that just this instance yells “set me now!!!!” and I’m off and running making . . . whatever. . .  And the plan is left a long way back there along the side of the proverbial road.

37 x63 mm overall, this silver pendant is hand forged and roller printed. the stone is an outstanding deep blue 19x38 mm Variegated Hawkeye with multiple Chatoyancy. This is an outstanding stone that must be seen to be appreciated. Priced at $125USD

The last two weeks were a bit different.  I am an instructor, I teach both private lessons and also I do an occasional lesson for a club I belong to.  The last two Wednesdays I taught a class for this club.  Less than a handful of students signed up and only two showed up for the class.  It s a volunteer thing, I don’t get paid but it was fun.  So I needed to do a sample project or two for the class.  That got my mind working in the “let’s beat the hell out of a piece of metal and see what it looks like” mode.  This is also called forging.  I’m a forger.  I don’t forge money (although based on recent sales that might not be a bad idea), but I do forge metal.  Specifically silver metal.  This begged the question of, what about the other two metals in the Silver/gold/copper group?  How will they forge?  So I decided that it was time to start forging copper and gold.  Now here is a really interesting thought (I can have one you know. . . ) if a paper forger forges money out of paper. . . could a metal forger forge gold out of copper? ? ? 

This hand forged copper pendant is 32x44 mm overall and features a 18x25 mm Mookaite. The stone is held with sterling silver pins. The piece is torch colored. Price is $100USD

Side view of copper and Mookaite pendant,

Back to the story, we’ll hold that thought for a later date also.  So I decided it was time to try forging gold and copper.  Copper is easy to forge.  You go to Home Depot, buy some bare copper grounding wire off the huge revolving wall rack and presto, you are ready to go!  Now gold.  Where to get some gold. . . I actually had a ring, given to me by a brother, that was a mixture of white gold and yellow gold in 14kt.  A few miles down the road from where I live is a Gold and Silver Exchange, so I took my white and yellow 14kt gold ring and . . . ready for this???? it’s a big one. . . really. . . and I exchanged it for a 14kt yellow gold ring!!!  That’s right, the Gold and Silver Exchange actually exchanged my ring for a second ring.  The transaction cost me a service fee of $10USD.  I wasn’t complaining.  But to be honest, I know the owner and do a fair amount of business with him.  I buy clean sterling scrap off of him for spot from time to time.  So I kind of cheated.  He did me a favor.

This 18x44 mm pendant features a hidden bail. It is made from copper. This was a "lucky accident" and the melting process stopped when this form appeared. Priced at $65USD

Now I had the gold and I had the copper so I went into the studio and forged it.  The gold totaled about 6dwt and I eventually rolled it out into a really nice piece of 24guage sheet.  I learned a few lessons along the way, like anneal Janet. . . anneal.  The sheet ended up with a split in it.  I knew I needed to anneal it, but I thought, just one more .06mm, it would be fine.  Forget that theory.  But I can work around the split and I’ll just reforge and reroll the scrap.  What scrap????  The copper. . . I had a different problem with.  I seem that I like copper that is in a more “ingot shape”.  Two of the three pieces never made it to the anvil.  In fact, one piece never got entirely melted in the first place.

24x40 mm overall. This copper casting ingot pendant features a 4mm deep blue sapphire. Price is $80USD.

So for the week, I ended up with 9 pendants.  Yes, I could have done more.  I’m always reminded of a storey Lou Reed told on Sirius Radio on morning.  In the 1960′s he, along with a lot of other artists, writers, and musicians, shared work space in NY with Andy Warhol.  One day, according to Reed, he and his fellow musicians had a great day and had written 5 new songs start to finish.  They were sitting around enjoying a few beers and Warhol came in and asked how their day went.  Reed told him that it was a great day, that they had written 5 new songs.  Warhol replies “What is the matter with you?  Why only five?  Are you lazy?  Why not six?  Why not seven?  Why did you stop?. . .”

At 28x76mm this sterling pendant wieghs approx 1/2 ounce. This silver was being melted as scrap when this form appeared. It features a hidden bail in the back. Price is $125USD

Side view of sterling scrap wire pendant.

A different perspective on art obviously.  That story kind of haunts me.  I look at a week’s work, and it was a good weeks work and the pendants are exceptionally clean.  But should I have done more?  Should I have done ten?  Or eleven? Or twelve?  Was I being lazy? Would Andy be happy with my weeks production?

29x43 overall featuring a 13 x 29 mm Montana Agate, this pendant is hand forged sterling silver. priced at $125USD

How much work should you do in a week?  How hard should you push yourself?  Am I wrong to write this blog today?  This means no studio time.  I could be in the studio melting more copper.  Am I wrong to volunteer to be a instructor for a club?  I don’t get paid.  it cuts into my studio time.  Am I lazy?  Is that why I am an instructor?

With an overall size of 30 x 40 mm, this hand forged silver pendant features a approx. 10x12 mm CZ. Priced at $70USD.

There has to be a trade off.  Art, for me anyway, is not about absolute production.  It is about sharing and teaching.  It is about discovery.  It is about taking time to smell the roses because there may be some inspiration there.  Art, again for me, is about living your life to its fullest.  It is about doing and creating and going places you never imagined existed.  About trying.  And about failing.  Because you cannot learn unless you fail.  But art is really not about quantity.  It is not about how many or how much.  It is about simply doing.  And doing the best you can do.  About learning and growing your craft.

I’m sorry Andy, Lou Reed wrote enough songs that day.  It was time to blow back with some suds.

And no, tomorrow when I go into the studio, I will not have a preconceived plan of attack.  I will allow the metal and stone lead me to where it want me to go.  I am along for the ride.  I am not the conductor.

9 pendants in a week.  That is a good weeks work.

enjoy

janet

This pendant is 32x52 mm overall. The reticulated sterling silver is hand forged. The stone is a 23x32 mm cone section cut from Spider Jasper. Priced at $150USD

Side view of the Spider Jasper pendant. Although sold to the artist as rough as jasper, the stone most likely is obsidian.

 Oh yes. . . I forgot. . .the title of this post?  I lied.  It took me 8 days this last week, not seven. 

A tray of fantastic cabochons

 Whoa baby. . . .  now this is heady stuff.

OK, this blog is about gems and minerals and jewelry right?  So why the introduction.  Because yesterday I got to go to one of those mystical places, to a real honest bazaar.  And it was everything it was supposed to be, and more.

A few thousand cts of emeralds at $1.00USD/ct. Not bad, not bad at all.

As I have writen before, Quartzsite is a mixture of place and event.  One of those events is the Annual Pow Wow put on by the Quartzsite Improvement Association or QIA.  Now, the QIA has been doing this for over 40 years, and they pretty much have figured out how to do it right.  Occurring near the end of January,  the Pow Wow has 1) nothing to do with Native Americans (although some do attend and 2) everything to do about rocks and gems and minerals and jewelry and. . . . you really have to go there at least once in your life.  The Pow Wow is a 5 day event with Saturday being the big day.  The crowds are simply huge, every vendor ready to deal and the atmosphere is best described as electric.  The QIA Pow Wow is timed to occur towards the end of January so that as many venders as possible have the opportunity got be there.  And the timing is just right so that a lot of really high end vendors will do the Pow Wow, spend a week recovering in the sun and then head off to Tucson and the madness that occurs there every year in February. 

For one day to drive 3 1/2 hours, spend 7 hours walking, talking, shopping, photographing, and then a 3 1/2 hour drive home now that is a journey.  That was yesterday.  I edited the photos this morning and it is now 2 pm PST and I am writing.  And I am totally exhausted.  But it was worth it.  Every bit of pain.  Every bit of exhaustion.  It was a fantastic day at a fantastic place doing what I love to do best shop for rocks.

I spent a good 20 minutes deciding that $35USD was a bit much for this slab, but I came clsoe.

2010 has been a difficult year financially so we almost did not go to the Pow Wow.  I had to do the Federal taxes first before we could even think of going.  And we had just two weeks ago came back from our first yearly trip to Quartzsite.  But we decided to go and . . . ready for this?????  NOT spend much money. . . . yea right, like that is going to happen, this is Quartzsite we are talking about.  Still there were some things I needed and people I wanted to see.  Over the years so many of the dealers have become really close friends and this is often the only time all year we have an opportunity to spend a few minutes talking and catching up.  And there are always invitations to give out for our local show (more about that in another post).  So we went without much expectation.  I was going to show off some of our latest pieces, take some photos and have a good time.

And then we stopped at the Andamooka Opal booth.  You know where this is going, don’t you?  I own a fair amount of Andamooka Black Matrix Opal.  I love it, but it is a bit different from what most people think of when they think of opal.  We had spent some time in the Andamooka booth when it was in Tyson Wells two weeks ago.  So I didn’t expect to see anything new.  But you know, it sometimes matters what angle the sun is in the sky, how tired you are, who you are with and so many other variables.   Regardless, this time the Cober Pedy rough lots caught our eye.  Opal is frequently sold in lots.  A lot is a number of individual pieces that are only offered for sell as a group.  It is all or nothing.  And it is usually sold in glass bottles (often baby food bottles.  I have this mental image of these really rough and tough Auzzie Miners sitting around the fire eating baby food so that they have enough empty bottles to pack the days opal in) ((I’m really bad today))(((I may get worse, fair warning)))((((Auzzie’s IS a word in my Word dictionary, I know, I added it))))(((((Warned you))))).

This piece of Cober Pedy rough can be yours for the low, low, loooow price of $4,500USD. That's Four Thousand Five Hundred Dollars.

So the Andamooka Auzzies, I don’t think they like baby food because I’ve only once seen a baby food sized bottle in their booth, they may have borrowed it because they didn’t have it this year.  The Andamooka Opal is sold by the piece, never by the lot.  However, the last two years these guys have brought over some Cober Pedy rough in lots, but they put the lots out in shallow water filled trays.  Opal is always sold and photographed wet if you didn’t know, most rock is.  So we were taking our time, walking around the Auzzie’s booth and this one tray caught our eyes.  Now, there were about 20 trays out for sell.  One priced at $4500USD had a grand total of 1 (one)((single or solitary)) piece of opal in it.  But most had a fair amount.  And there was a card giving the ounce weight (opals are sold in grams or cts.  What gives????  I haven’t a clue on this one) and the price in USD or United Stated Dollars.  One tray didn’t look right.  One tray appeared to be waaaaaaaaaay under priced.  Now it wasn’t cheap.  These lots are where the big boys play if you get my drift.  But I have a respectable understanding of opal and prices and this lot was way too cheap.  So we asked.  And the price was stated correctly.  But . . . remember we were not going to buy anything expensive???  I’m very proud of us.  We walked out of that booth without buying that lot of opal.  Got down. . . maybe 8-10 booths. . . looked at each other, turned right around made a bee line back to the Auzzies and got our opal.  OK, cat food and dog food for the next three months.  Those of you who know me personally, I’m going on the opal diet. . . .   An advanced cutter figures that you will get somewhere around ten times your investment in retail sales from good stone.  I showed this lot to about a dozen good cutters and they all agreed with me, this lot should bring at least $10,000 in retail value once cut with the largest stone coming in around $1800-$2000 cut, unset retail.  I paid about 40% of what I figured the lot was worth.  There are two types of opals offered for sale.  Those that look pretty as display pieces and those that you need to know what you are looking at.  This lot was the second type.  So I have not photographed it yet.  “Yet” she said snapping her whip at her overly anxious readers. . .

I lied, I photographed the Cober Pedy lot we bought. When buying cutting opal, you look to the edges, not the faces, to grade and make your decisions.

That started the day off with a bang.  I had received an email on Thursday night saying that the Pow Wow seemed like there wasn’t much being offered.  Not exactly true, this year the Pow Wow had perhaps more than normal really high end materials.  We saw a lot of faceting rough, a lot of opal, a fair amount of turquoise, and a lot of really high end stuff.  What was missing was the bulk, the agate and jasper rough.  We drove past Desert Gardens and the place looked packed with dealers and customers, so I suspect that a lot of the rough dealers choose this year to stay in the Gardens.  I did buy some rough, two pieces actually.  I just lied.  I bought one piece and was given the second piece free when I told the Miner, my friend Richard who was audacious enough to name a new rock “chipboard”, that I had written him up for giving an attractive rock one of the most lame excuses for a name.  He was so thrilled that he gave me another piece!!!  Thanks Richard, love your miner’s hat.

My friend Richard with his miner's hat. You can always find him at a show.

There were a lot of slabs.  I didn’t find the bargains like I did two weeks ago, but the selection was fantastic.  So I did pick up a few slabs that were different or interesting.  And there were tons and tons and tons of finished cabs.  Now, the single reason that the price of silver is so damn high is that there is some rule made by someone, somewhere that says that every single cabochon shown at the QIA Pow Wow has to be set by the NEXT QIA Pow Wow.  That would definitely explain the shortage and price increase.  Although there were a LOT of cabs, I didn’t see any real deals.  I did buy one cab.  (Written with arms over her head waiting for the world to end).  I had a customer request for moonstone and I came up blank on rough.  Finally at the end of the day I found moonstone cab that was the right size, the right price and the right look, so I bought it.  (Is the roof still standing????)

If there is one thing that I do not need, it is Montana Agate slabs. But I bought it anyway.

You know, every good fantasy novel has at its heart the quest.  This is where the heroes go off to some far away foreign land (Arizona doesn’t do daylight savings time, so they can’t be American, right????)((I warned you, you’re the one who kept on reading, not me.)) and have to search the bazaar for some item to fulfill some quest.  Well we had ours.  I needed a piece of opal that was not pin fire and that could be displayed in a glass bottle and had a lot of really good play of color (that’s what the “fire” in opal is really called).  Two weeks ago we spend three days and came up empty handed.  After 6 1/2 hours of exhausting search, we were at the end of our strength and ready to quit and abandon our quest and I stopped to talk to two good friends (cutters both of them and miners also)).  And through the doorway in the adjacent building I saw. . .ready for this?  You know what’s coming don’t you?  Yup.  I saw . . . anticipation getting to you yet. . . . want to throttle me? . . . OK. . . I saw opal.  So I immediately walked out of a very interesting conversation and went into the building and there it was.  The opal that I had literally driven across deserts for (In a Tundra no less!!!  Get it???  Drive across a desert in a tundra???  Come on laugh a little that was a good joke.).  That I had journeyed to exhaustion for.  That I had come to this foreign bazaar for. . . I found the opal that would fulfill my quest and make my brother happy (I hope).  Actually I found the folks from the Spencer Opal Mine in Spencer Idaho and they did have exactly what we wanted.  And we were able to bargain (that’s part of this tradition remember?) and the tension rose and we did long distant smoke signals (my cell phone was getting over heated) and finally struck the deal that would end the day.  Quest accomplished.

The Spencer Idaho opal from the Quest.

A second view of the play of color in the Spence Idaho opal.

Or so we thought.  Because you know, there is always one more corner that you need to look into.  One more booth with an exhausted dealer.  And in that booth I found some Morenci Turquoise.  At about 25% of what I had seen it for at another booth earlier in the day.  So my personal quest for Morenci (I had 4-5 requests for it last year alone) also came to a close.  And my reward, because the hero or heroine always gets rewarded, was two beautiful pieces of Morenci Turquoise that I get to use in my own work.

Morenci Turquoise. It's all mine.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this quest to a foreign bazaar, a place far, far away and as exotic as all hell.  I know that come 2012, I will be back.  And I am sure that next year I will have a new quest and meet both old friends and make new friends.  I will spend money I don’t have and can’t afford on supplies that I probably don’t need.  But you know something?  In a few weeks I’ll be 59 years old.  I’ve waited most of my life to do things.  I’m beginning to realize that there could not be all that much of my life left.  So if I don’t do the things I want to now, I just may never have the opportunity again.  Life only rolls around once.  It’s a one way ticket to ride.  We don’t get to pick when or where we get on, and most likely we don’t get to pick where we get off.  But we do have some degree of control of where the ride goes.  My ride goes to my art.  It is my life, it is my soul.  Someday, my ride will end, but my art, the things I have created, the words I have written, photographs taken, pictures painted.  Those things, my art, will live on long after my ride is over.  And for me?  I suppose that is all that really matters.

enjoy

janet

Some display pieces are not cheap. This agate half was priced at well over $150USD

Another high priced agate half, perfectly polished but priced at over $100.00

This display piece is clearly marked at $150USD. I'm sorry, too much for my taste.

I'm going to take this photograph with me and the next time I'm told my work is too big. . . .

Amethyst from Thunder Bay Ontario.

Pietersite slad. This is a type of tiger eye found in South Africa and China. Very expensive.

Pietersite slab. This is "if you have to ask, you can't afford it" material. I couldn't afford it.

Mexican fire agate, windowed to expose the fire.

Closeup of Mexican Fire Agate. Fire Agate has fire, opal has play of color, they are not the same thing.

This one I did not expect, Picture sandstone from . . .ready for ths??? from Ohio. For sale in Arizona. I told you that this was an INTERNATIONAL market place. Because snowy and cold Ohio is worlds away from warm and sunny Arizona.

This is a Mookaite display slad. The vendors at this booth told me that if they had charged $1 per photograph, they could have doubled the selling price of $125 easily. I wanted it.

Maramumba polished display slab.

Some of the thousands of flats of mineral specimens offered at the Pow Wow.

I believe that this is a Mexican Imperial Jasper slab, regardless, it is fantastic.

Lightning Ridge Black Opal. This is the most expensive type of opal rough in the world.

A rather BLUE black Lightning Ridge opal. I did not want to know the price. I know that I could not afford it. I estimate well over 10K USD.

Extremely attractive florite slab at $35USD

Transportation is available from the distant parking lots

   

Rock, like a lot of things, has "grain" or orientation. We always cut rock certain ways. Laguana Agate is always cut to show the large fortifications. This time George of Oasis Prospecting went against the "grain" and cut the rock at 90 degrees to the normal axis. The fantastic pattern is bytroidal on the back and is destined to be flat lapped for a private collector named "Paul" (Hint he's my brother. . . )

Yesterday we returned from Quartzsite, the first of our two annual trips to this Mecca of rocks. There is a lot I do not like about living in Southern California, but being just 4 hours from Quartzsite is not one of them. Double negative and I’m leaving it in. For those of you who are not familiar with Quartzsite and what this post is about I suppose I should start with some . . facts?

Typical Desert Gardens scene.

Quartzsite is both a location, a town actually, and a series of annual events. Located about 15-20 miles east of the California border along I-10, this Arizona town is unique in many ways. If you were to visit in the heat of the summer, first most people would look at you really strangely. Quartzsite is deadly hot in the summer and temps of 120′s are not unheard of. Basically the ONLY reason people visit Quartzsite in the summer is because they were driving either east or west on I-10 or north or south on Arizona 95 and their car needs gas. Because of that and the general lack of any other reason to be in Quartzsite in the summer, the population falls to a few thousand at best. But come fall, winter and spring, everything changes. This sleepy HOT town of a few thousand grows into a community of over 100,000. And virtually everyone of them bring their homes with them. I actually think that there are more campgrounds in Quartzsite than any other town in the country. I may be wrong, I don’t winter in Florida. But Quartzsite also has one thing that Florida does not have. BLM (Bureau of Land Management, or federally owned land) land stretching as far as the eye can see on all sides of the town. And on much of the BLM land you can dry camp for free. So it is the perfect place for snowbirds for the US and Canada to spend the winter. This time of year, the weather is usually mild, the sky blue and the sun shining. And snow? Not that I’ve ever heard of.
Now the event(s). With this many visitors it was natural that an entire industry developed to entertain and supply these winter snowbirds with 1) something to do and 2) a way for the locals to make as much money as they can during the winter season. So “shows” were started. At Quartzsite shows are really themed flea markets. They last from a few days to a few months. And since this is rock country, some of the shows inevitably became focused on rocks and gems. With time, these shows have become one of the major trading bazaars for rocks in the world. This is the place where miners and importers from all over not only the US, but the world bring their rocks and gems and buyers, again from not only the US and Canada but from all over the world come to buy. January is the “hot” month for rocks in Quartzsite. Some venues start earlier, some stay open later, but it is in January that the rock world descends on this hot desert towns to do the only thing that makes much sense for this isolated stretch of nowhere, buy and sell rocks.
Sound crazy? Your right. It is.

The BLM offers open FREE camping for RVer's around Quartzsite

As usual we made our annual pilgrimage to Quartzsite this last weekend. We took four days, leaving Thursday morning and arriving in time to do some shopping Thursday afternoon and heading back home on Sunday morning. The economy dictated that our buying was limited this year. That said, we went knowing that we needed to restock a number of items from vendors we see annually and also as always, we were looking for the newest, latest, and greatest finds and imports.

Turquoise chips, available by the pound.

What we found was that as it always does, Quartzsite reinvented itself. We have been making this trip for about 6-7 years now and as always, it took several hours to rediscover where places moved to. There are a handful of places that remain static. Loves and Pilot. McDonalds and Jack-in-the-Box, those types of places stay the same. And the major shows like Desert Gardens, Tyson Wells and the Main Event do likewise. But smaller venues play a game of shuffle board with the RV sales lots. One year there are vendors, the next year RVs, the next year (I think they must be farmers. . . ) the site lies fallow. The first thing we noticed was that there were less RV lots than in the last few years. But also a number of semi-permanent structures were gone and large lots lie totally empty. Roadside vendors who we have dealt with in the past were not to be found. It could have been that we were early, but I don’t think so. Too much was empty, too much was open. When we went to the shows (we basically went to two shows, Tyson Wells and Desert Gardens) we saw the same thing. Yes, especially in Desert Gardens, there were empty spots, but there were also a lot of vendors we knew from past years totally missing. And a significant portion of those who did come, came with less, especially in the terms of rough. “Rough”, when you are talking to gem and mineral people is rough rock just as it comes from the ground with nothing done to it. There was plenty of slabs, but even here a lot of the high value dealers were missing.

This photo is a close up of the Cherry Creek Jasper coming out of China. You can find this at the Auzzie's booths and at other locations this year.

The other thing we noticed was the lack of the “hot rock”. Generally when we arrive at Quartzsite there is a certain “buzz” around town about a new find, a “hot rock”. This year there was nothing. That is not to say that there was nothing new, because there was new stuff, but the town was quiet, like it was not as impressed as usual. The biggest “news” was the fall of last year’s “Hot rock”, that being Cherry Creek Jasper. Last year that was the rock to have. I personally paid $25 for one slab (which I have yet to cut) and was thrilled to get one. This year the Auzzie’s had a double row of 55 gallon barrels about 20 or so in total, completely filled with the stuff. And the price? I’m not saying, but it was . . well . . really cheap. And there are some fantastic Cherry Creek intarsia Cabs floating around for under $10 each. It was almost like why cut????

OK, the last couple of years, the "Hot Rock" was Sonoran Sunrise/Sunset. And it is pricey. I found a huge bin of slabs, all priced. This 4" x4" piece was carrying a price of $141USD on one side and it was a bargin at $140USD on the reverse. DON'T BUY THIS SLAB FOR ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY ONE DOLLARS. There are dealers at Quartzsite, this one at Tyson Wells, who are trying to rip you off. If you don't shop carefully, you could be robbed by this dealer.

I only saw one real turquoise dealer. Now I saw several dealers with turquoise, but only one miner, that being Sunwest Silver. Sunwest split their operations this year. The finished stuff is in a building close to Main and 95, but they moved their rough to Desert Gardens. It was nice to see it back in the Gardens. Sunwest has some nice turquoise, but then Sunwest ONLY sells quality material. I came real close to buying some Pietersite in the rough from them. Real close, but I finally resisted.

This is a close up photo of an Andamooka opal slab. The grade was AAA.

Opals were also in short supply. There was a lot of Mexican Opal around. And in Tyson Wells, the Andamooka guys were back with some great stuff. They also had some super large lots of Cober Peddy rough. One of the things I was looking for was some Virgin Valley opal for my brother who was looking for a specimen. After three days of searching I finally found some. Key word here, some. Some as in a very small amount definitely overpriced. The material was nice, but way over priced for Virgin Valley. For those who don’t know opals, Virgin Valley opal is a fantastic black opal that is almost always limb casts. The problem is that it is highly hydrated (opal is hydrated agate) and subject to crazing and cracking as it dries out. Personally I am not willing to take a chance on cutting it, but my brother wanted a specimen and was willing to allow it to live in water (then it doesn’t dry out. . . ).

Close up of Blue Cherry Quartz which I think should have been named Blueberry Quartz . . .

This was actually the SMALLEST piece of Blue Cherry Quartz offered for sell last weekend. Normally I do not call 47 lbs of any rock "small".

A few of the new things that caught our eyes were the Blue, Pink and Green Cherry Quartz. Now. . . Cherry quartz is red. That’s why it’s called Cherry Quartz. So when the Chinese came up with some new colors, they named it Blue Cherry Quartz. Why not Blueberry Quartz? Regardless, on Friday the Auzzie’s had two 55 gallon drums of the stuff. We bought a nice piece (the chunks of this stuff are H*U*G*E). On Saturday afternoon I could not find any in their booth. Sorry, you missed it. See me at the Stoddard Wells Tailgate and I may sell you some . . . if your nice to me. It is definitely better than the original Cherry Quartz. We also got some Pink Cherry Quartz. But I like the blue better.

These three pieces of "tiger Eye" went home with me.

"Tiger Eye", piled in a fortification arrangement.

The Auzzie’s also had some new Tiger Eye. OK, I’m going to disagree with them on this one. The Auzzie’s were selling what they called Tiger Eye. What they had was Variegated Hawkeye with Multiple Chatoyancies. The price was $4-8/lb, depending on the width of the material. The $4/lb stuff was wide enough for a 30×40 mm stone, so you really didn’t need the $8/lb stuff. I bought a lot. It was selling fast. Based on what they had on Thursday set out, over half of it was sold by Saturday. I don’t know if they had more in stock, but I doubt that there will be much left by this weekend.

Pietersite, at $40USD/lb I came sooooo close to coming home with it, but I resisted.

We also found some new agate type materials and some dendritic material. But overall, like I said before, it was basically a thin show in regards to new materials. I’m hoping that there is some new stuff at the Pow-Wow (a Quartzsite show that occurs in about 10 days or so).

This slab was approx. 4" x 6". The dendrites ARE silver. I WANT it. But at $580 USD, I think I'll pass this year.

On another front, silver. One of the things we always bought at Quartzsite was bulk sterling silver findings. This year both of our traditional suppliers stopped carrying bulk findings. Silver chains were also harder to find. And there was a rumbling that the silversmithing world had better learn to work in copper if they want to stay in business. Gold? You must be kidding. This year’s Quartzsite showed a different world, one where traditional materials may not be in as great of supply and where Jewelry Artists will need to learn to adapt if they want to survive.

Tampa Bay Coral/Agate specimen.

This year’s show was good overall, but it shows the changing face of our arts today. We all know that the world is changing and changing fast, but it takes events like Quartzsite to show us that the effects are immediate sometimes. With the enormous run up in the price in silver and gold, the Jewelry Arts has to change. In today’s economy buyers cannot afford $1300/ounce gold or $30/ ounce silver. Nor can they afford $40/ct opals and turquoise. As the prices of extracting these stones and minerals continues to increase, Jewelry Artists will by necessity need to adapt, or risk being left behind. We must find ways to moderate the prices of our art.
But all that said, Quartzsite will remain a thrill and as artists we will continue to look to this out of the way town full of funky people and shows for inspiration.
enjoy

This tourmaline specimen was about 3 foot long.

Some nice looking Sci-fi or Porcelean Jasper.

Sone really nice flat lapped display slabs.

Petrified wood slabs.

This material is called Liarite. And I may be off on the spelling. The dealer was selling these impressive pieces for $1 USD each.

And what would a trip to Quartzsite be without Mookaite?

Frank, the Auzzie who owns the booth (and the rock) is what is radioactive, not the Labadorite. Mary Lou just touched, she did not rub. Really.

Why we go to Quartzsite early. I bought 11 Iris Agate slabs for. . . are you ready???? Really???? $10.00USD. For all 11 slabs. That's like 90 cents per Iris Agate slab. Sorry folks, all gone.

As usual, the market was flooded with amethyst cathedrals. What was unusual was a number of them had cave like horizontal orientations.

Me and Mollie heading home with the good stuff.

Fordite cabochons. Approx. 1/2 x 1/2 " NFS

So . . I decided to cut some cabs.  Not many mind you.  Nothing like the 156 batch I did last spring as I was recovering from whatever infection almost did me in.  But still, a really decent size batch.  And since agates have been selling, and since I usually like cutting more “spendy” stuff as my friend Chuck says, I decided to focus on agatey (Is that a word?????  It is now. . . . spendy needs added to my dictionary to I see.  Word is sooooo nice to write in.) stuff.  That was a horrible sentence.  Oh well, it’s Christmas morning as I write this and sometimes you just get what you get.  There, both agatey and spendy are now officially words in MY dictionary.

 Back to cutting stones.  This batch ended up with 113 stones in it.  But I only photograph 111 ( I think).  One stone got shipped off to Pennsylvania while you were sleeping and one stone did not make my final cut.  I started with more.  But as I cut I like to toss out most of the stones that I don’t like.  I mean, why spend time cutting something that I don’t want to set?  Someone MIGHT buy it.  But honestly?  If I don’t like it, then the odds are no one else will either.  So I threw about a dozen along the way.  One of them hurt.  It was a gorgeous chunk of Kingman blue in a red matrix turquoise.  It ended up in 4 pieces.  Not sure if even those small pieces are stable enough to cut.  I may try, but don’t hold your breath.

Cutting stone, lapidary, is a strange art.  You take a hunk of something (we do cut things other than stone, but we call them stones anyway) and you look at it from the outside and try to determine what the inside is going to look like.  What is the color?  What is the pattern?  Is it hard enough to cut?  Will it take a polish?  Will I like it?  Can I sell it?  Based on the answers to these questions we select the pieces we want to work with.  This means buy or, especially out here in the deserts of Southern California, collect.  And when it comes to buying?  I have paid as much as $1,350/ pound.  Not a typo, one thousand three hundred and fifty dollars USD per pound.  I’ve only done that once or twice.  That’s what really good opal costs.  Still, in this collection there are several stones that I recently paid $454 per pound or $1.00USD per gram.  No, I did not buy a pound.  I wish I could have.  But I don’t think the dealer had a pound to sell to be honest.  This time I bought, are you ready for this?  Paint.  Yep.  I paid $1.00/gram for paint.  Used of course.  Garbage actually.  The stuff the staff at Ford was supposed to throw out with the trash about 50 years ago, but took home instead.

Fordite approx 2 x 2 " showing end cut

Fordite aprrox. 2" x 2" showing face cut. Notice the window on the left side.

Fordite is one of those strange things.  The storey I’ve been told, and I believe most of it is true, is that from roughly 1955 until roughly 1965 Ford had a production problem at one of their assembly plants in Detroit.  There are two parts to this “problem”, the first part is that one at least one of their lines, Ford had a massive overspray issue where excess paint built up into a inch plus thick coating on equipment that eventually had to be broken off with sledge hammers.  The second part was the nature of the paint.  I’m not sure, and regardless I’m not about to do the research, but I suspect that at that time Ford was using an enamel paint.  Regardless, whatever type of paint it is, it cuts and polishes beautifully.  The two cabs that open this post are Fordite.  That’s what this stuff is called Fordite.  I have heard it called Detroit Agate also.  I like Fordite better.  So this industrial waste has been sitting in some guys garage or basement for roughly 60 years now, stuff he most likely took home in his lunch bucket.  Stuff that Ford wanted to send to a land fill.  And now?  $454 a pound USD.

Go figure.

Wonder what is being buried in the Victorville dump. . . .

So anyway, you want to see stone not hear me chatter.

I’m going to do the descriptive stuff in the captions this time.  No reason, it’s Christmas and I can do whatever I want to.  The stones are for sell.  The prices range from around $20 retail for some of the smaller agates up to $2-300 for some of the turquoise, tiffany, and dino bone.  Some odd stuff in here also.  Some really nice alunite in a pattern called “chipboard”.  Only Richard would name a new rock chipboard.  I know it looks like it, but how are you supposed to market chipboard?  Come on miners, use some imagination.   Tiffany Stone I can market, but Chipboard??????

enjoy

Three large cabs. Quarter shown for size. L to R, Royal Sahara Jasper $$75USD, India Blackskin Agate $75USD, unknown Wonderstone $60USD.

Three large stones. L to R. Botswana Agate $75 USD, Biggs??? $65 USD, India blackskin Agate $80 USD

Turquoise, quarter shown for scale. L to R Top row Kingman red matrix $150USD, Kingman Red Matrix $200 USD, Blue NFS, Crazy House (not Turquoise ) $75.00USD. Bottom row Kingman reconstituted turquosie with bronz matrix. Prices L to R are $75USD, $75 USD, $80USD, and $100 USD

Tiffany Stone (Bertrandite) Quarter shown for scale. Top row, L to R $100USD, $100USD, $75USD, $100USD. Bottom row, L to R $50USD, $100USD, $65USD, NFS

Mixed bag. Quarter shown for scale. Tigareye $35.00USD, Tigereye $30.00USD, Marcasite $80.00USD, Fordite NFS. Bottom row, L to R Sodalite $20.00USD, Tiffany Stone $70USD, Denim Lapis $45USD, Fordite NFS.

Mixed bag 2. Quarter shown for scale. Top row L to R, Reconstituted coral with zinc matrix $100.00USD, turquoise $20.00 USD Dino Bone $20.00USD. Bottom row L to R, Sonoran Sunrise $125 USD, Dino Bone $60 USD, Dino Bone $125 USD.

Special cuts, these stones are cut for non-traditional settings. Quarter shown for size. L to R Kramer Agate $100 USD, Graveyard Point $80.00USD, Graveyard Point $45.00USD, Kramer Agate $35.00USD.

Mookaite. Larger stones are 30x40 mm for reference. All stones are $35.00USD.

Montana Agates shown on white background. Quarter shown for refeence. Top row L to R Iris Agat with Moss, blue base $200 USD, 30x40 MM $60.00USD, 30x40 mm $60.00USD. Bottom row, L to R 30x40 Mm $50.00 USD, NFS.

Same 5 Montana Agates photograped against black background.

Long cabs, quarter shown for reference. Agate $45.00 USD, agate $40.00 USD, Botswana Agate $40.00 USD, Montana Agate $40.00 USD.

Eight Agates, 30x40 mm approx. Mixed sources. $35.00USD each.

Eight Agates-2, 30x40 mm approx. Mixed sources. $35.00USD each.

Eight Agates-3, 30x40 mm approx. Mixed sources. $35.00USD each except top row 3rd from left $60.00USD and bottom row left most $75.00USD.

Eight Agates-4,Quarter shown for size. Top row L to R Breciated Agate $35.00, Breciated Agate $30.00, Breciated Agate $25.00, unknown $20.00USD. Bottom row, L to R, Wonderstone/mudstone $35.00,Botswanna (must pin set) $40.00USD, Botswana $40.00, Seam Agate from Oregon $30.00USD.

Alunite, Quarter shown for size. toprow tradional pattern formerally known as red turquosie, L to R $50.00USD, $50.00USD, $30.00USD, $20.00 USD (note, stone has pit). Bottom row, Alunite pattern known as Chipboard L to R $50.00, $25.00, $35.00. Note, Alunite is a very soft stone, not suitable for rings.

Miss mash of stones. Quarter shown for size. Top row, L to R, Rainbow ledge Agate $25.00 USD, Moss Agate $25.00USD, Agate $20.00USD, Red Spiney Oyster Shell $30.00USD, Kramer agate $25.00USD. Middle row L to R, Lemon Chrysophrase $30.00USD, Agate $25.00 USD, oregon seam Agate $25.00USD, Black Brazilian with druze NFS (est $60USD). Bottom row L to R, Polish Flint NFS (est. $60.00USD), Black Mossy $45.00USD, reconstitured red coarl with zinc $25.00, tigereye (flawed stone ) NFS, unknown agate $20.00USD.

Mookaite at Frank's Booth in Quartzsite

Well here we are folks.  In the final days before the happiest time of the year.  Plans are being made.  Travel arrangements finalized.  Hopes and dreams keep us awake at night.  You know the story, it happens every year this time.

And I bet you think I’m writing about Christmas.  Well guess what.  You are dead wrong.  Nope, not about New Year’s in Vegas either.  I’m writing about the grandest holiday tradition of them all.  Quartzsite.  That’s right, the annual Quartzsite Gem and Mineral shows (and there are many) start in just a little over two weeks.  And we’re getting ready.  Planning our plan of attack.  Making lists of things we need.  Hoping and praying for something unique. 

We’re packing our bags as I write.  Loading the trailer, fueling up the pickup.  Because in a few short weeks we are off to Quartzsite!!!!!

Can life get any better than this?

Seriously folks, it is getting close to the annual Arizona miracle.  That’s when a town of around 1500 souls miraculously becomes a city of over 100,000.  And it seems that most of those 100,000 are there to either buy or sell rocks.  Quartzsite is different from the shows in Tucson.  Tucson is basically a wholesale show with some retail available.  Great if your stocking a store.  But if your into rough, tough, burley type of rocks like I am then Quartzsite is the place to be.  And to be honest, most of the rough vendors at Tucson do Quartzsite in January and in this business, the best always sells first.  So Tucson gets what is left over from Quartzsite in many cases.  Some vendors don’t do this Arizona show, and some vendors do hold some material back.  But most vendors just want to sell and sell now.

I’ll be doing a post as soon as I return, showing what I found.  And that should be in time for you to travel to Quartzsite before the magic month is over. 

Now, there is a chance, slim, but a chance, that I will be selling at the Pow-Wow.  We are trying to work out the details as I write.  So if your visit to this wonderland of rocks coincides with the Pow-Wow, keep an eye open for me and stop by and chat for a while.  I’ll be interested in hearing what you like in the blog and how you found out about it.

janet

38x50 mm Montana Agate set in sterling step bezel. Photo is back lit. Agate shows medium to strong iris effect. Translucent areas are blue tinted. Price $350USD

Recently I’ve been doing some silver work.  Actually first I did a whole lot of cutting and then, well some stone can wait until the devil buys ice skates to be set.  But others, that is a different story.  And that is the story I’m telling today.

30x40 mm Wonderstone? Set in step bezel. polished both sides. Price $100 USD

I really do not know what this rock is.  I believe that I purchased the slab off of my friend Joe who passed away a few months ago.  The piece I had was small, only big enough for two cabs.  This part of the slab stood out to me.  Alignment.  Notice how the vertical line in the stone does not align with the oval?  Wonder why?  Was Janet drinking that afternoon when she was cutting?  Not quite.  What happened was that the seeming vertical line was aligned with the stone before I started cutting.  However, as I cut deeper closer to the edge, the line shifted to the left.  And by that point I was committed.  Your right I should have been committed a loooong time ago . . . . but that is a different post.  The stone is hard and took a nice polish with no problems.  It most likely is either a Wonderstone or a Rhyolite.  Odds are Joe didn’t even know.

30x40 mm Polish Flint set in sterling step bezel. Polished both sides. Price $120USD

30x40 mm Polish Flint set in bezel cup. Price $80USD

30x40 mm Bruneau Jasper set in sterling step bezel. Price $90USD

30x40 mm Bruneau jasper, back view of step bezel settting.

Last weekend I was at a regional rock show.  I walked up to a friend’s booth and he had this piece of Bruneau Jasper still in matrix.  I wanted it.  I craved it. I desired it.  I determined that I was not going to return home without it.  Then I looked and the price.  $750.00 for about 2 pounds.

OK. . . . that’s a bit steep for me.  This piece I’ve had for a few years.  Great color.  Nice orbs.  Sounds like I’m describing a . . . nope, not going to say it.  Anyway, I’m showing both front and back so that you can see what a step bezel looks like from the rear.  Too much sex in this section.  Time to move on.

30x40 mm Soadalite set in sterling bezel cup. Price $80USD

Yes, I set sodalite.  No I didn’t like the experience.  YesI felt the rock was somehow. . . beneath me.  Joking folks.  I’ve had a rash of requests (grand total of one) for 30×40 sized sodalite.  Seems one of my customers had a guru tell her that she needed sodalite to balance something or the other.  Simple stone, simple setting, great color.

Reverse of Biggs jasper pendant.

Biggs Jasper.  I hope its Biggs Jasper anyway.  If it’s not Biggs Jasper won’t I look like a fool.  Several years ago I bought a large collection of rocks from a man who spent 20-30 years in Oregon.  I dumped a lot of it in my front yard.  Every so often I go rock hunting in my front yard.  And look what I found. . .   

Recently I was asked to cut and set a stone from a slab owned by a customer.  Yes I provide that service.  Anyway, she wanted a bail that allowed her to “quick change” her pendant from a silver chain.  So I designed a hook bail that I really like.  I’m not showing you so you can’t run out and copy it.  I’m so bad today . . . .  This bail also solved a problem for me.  When I have a free form stone it is often difficult to place the bail.  Place the bail at the center of gravity and it looks wrong.  Place the bail where it looks right and it hangs wrong.  This hidden bail allows me to solve that problem.  Great stone, but honestly?  Biggs is second to Royal Sahara Jasper.

30x40 mm Hawkeye set in bezel cup. Price $150USD

“Variegated Hawkeye with Multiple Chatoyancies”.  Now that is a mouthful.  The Tigereye family peaks in two different arenas.  One the one hand you have the Pietersites.  And on the other you have this stuff.  I cannot photograph what this stone does optically.  It is alive.  It moves.  It captivates.  This stone is the top of the top of the top.  If you like the tigereyes (hawkeye is blue or blue/gold tigereye) then you will love this stone.  Note, I have had other stones of this caliber photographed and included in books and called Pietersites, but I’m sticking with Variegated Hawkeye with Multiple Chatoyancies.

20x20 mm Phosphosiderite pin set on 40x50 mm reticulated silver. Oversized jumpring bail. Price $125 USD

From Argentina, Phosphosiderite is a uncommon distant relative of Turquoise.  Loved for its brilliant color, it can be a challenging stone to cut.  The piece I own seems to be more stable than some.  But I have heard war stories from the trenches about this material.  Soft, fragile, hard to polish.  My supply is really nice.  I set the stone against a reticulated silver background.  Elegant.  Sophisticated.  I’m going to throw up writing this crap.  You like it or you don’t.  I like it.

30x40 mm Bronze Sheen Obsidian set in recycled sterling setting. Price $120USD

Back of Sheen Obsidian. Scrap or recycled setting. Price $120USD

Sheen Obsidian.  I don’t know where I got this slab.  I wish I did.  I cut two stones from the slab, the second is waiting a setting.  This rock rocks.  Sheen in Obsidian is difficult to explain.  The technical explanation is as involved as the explanation for Precious Opal.  So just enjoy.

Now the setting.  This setting is typical of a new style of settings I’ve occasionally been doing.  It is a scrap silver setting.  It literally is completely made using recycled silver from my scrap bin.  Kind of interesting.  There is a growing demand among the environmentally concerned about sustainable use of both metal and stones.  I recycle about 97% of the precious metal  scrap I make in-house.  The only materials I have to send out to recycle are gold filled and white gold.  Neither are user friend when it comes to recycling.

Kingman Turquoise with bronze. 30x40 mm. Traditional bezel cup set with risen back. Price $250USD

Speaking of recycling, Colbaugh Processing Inc of Kingman Arizona, who own the Kingman Mountain Turquoise Mine, have   come up with a line of new products that utilize small chips.  This has been done for years, blending the chips with a resin and molding the resulting material into bricks.  But this is different.  Colbaugh has figured out how to blend the chips not with resin, but with metals.  Bronze and Zinc to be precise.  The result is like nothing found in nature.  But it allows Colbaugh to use every bit of waste material.  And it’s good to look at also.  I choose a more traditional setting for this stone.  I’m not showing it, but this pendant has a raised or risen back (that means the silver on the  back of the pendant is bumped out).  It does not add to the visible appeal, but it takes the pendant to a new sensual feel.  When we buy jewelry, we buy with both our eyes and our hands.  Touch is important as look.  In this pendant I try to respect both.

15x40 mm Holly Blue Agate pin set on 30x60 reticulated STERLING setting. Price $350USD

Holly Blue from Oregon.  Famous, gorgeous, always praised, and DON’T get caught trying to collect any.  The USFS (Government guys who control the tree) have permanently closed collecting at the site where Holly Blue was once found.  I bought this outstanding piece off of a man who bought it off of a widow of a old time collector in Eugene Oregon.  I fell in love with the blue.  But.  I never, ever, expected the candle.  I have one more cut piece of this, slightly larger, and it appears that the nugget will cut one final stone with this pattern.  I sincerely doubt that you or I will ever see an patterned piece of Holly Blue as fantastic as this on the market again.  In someone’s private collection?  Yes, but on the market?????

30x40 mm Botswana Agate set in sterling step bezel setting with hidden hook bail. Polished both sides. Price $90.00USD

32x53 mm Botswana Agate set in sterling step bezel setting. Polished both sides. Photographed against black velvet. Price $200USD

32x53 mm Botswana Agate set in sterling step bezel setting. Polished both sides. Back lit. $200USD

I L*O*V*E Botswana Agate.  If you like Lake Superior Agate, you will love Botswana.  Every nodule is different.  Every slab is unique.  These two stones speak for themselves.  Both are set in step bezel and polished both sides.  The larger stone is translucent to light and show a super strong shadow agate effect.  And there is just a tiny little bit of Iris effect also.  These stones are simply winners.

Montant Agate, photogarphed against black velvet. High polish made for a poor photograph. Price $350USD

Montana Agate, shown against sky background. Price $350USD

38x50 mm Montana Agate set in sterling step bezel. Photo is back lit. Agate shows medium to strong iris effect. Translucent areas are blue tinted. Price $350USD

Montana, Montana, Montana.  You love it or you hate it.  Frustrating to cut.  You can cut dozens of nodules and throw them away, and then a nodule you don’t even want to cut turns out like this.   This piece is a dendritic moss shadow blue tinted Montana Agate.  Rare, rare, rare, rare, rare.  I have about 1000 lbs of Montana left and I doubt that I’ll find another piece with this combination.  Yes I have a couple of additional slabs.  No, I am not selling.  The finished piece, yes, the slabs, nope.  I want the fun of cutting them.  Mine, just mine. . . . hehehehe . . .  The stone is set in a sterling step bezel and is polished both sides.

Copper and Bronze pendant. 25x50 mm overall. Price $45USD

Yes I make jewelry out of metals OTHER than silver and yes I make jewelry without stones.  Copper on flame patina bronze. 

Two forged rings Sterling ring on top size 8. Price $75USD

Two forged rings. Copper and sterling ring on top. Size 7. Price $75 USD

I’m doing this thing.  I’m trying to figure out what I can make in-house rather than buy.  Silver is about $28/ounce as I write this.  6 months ago I bought silver at $16.50/ounce.  Ouch!  So how do we deal with this?  In-house recycle is my solution.  I have been equipping my studio with everything I need to take a customer’s metal and make custom jewelry out of it.  That said, I have had several requests for rings.  I don’t cast.  Maybe in a few years, but right now I like to forge metal.  Sounds like with the high price of silver I’m forging silver out of lead or something. . . but I like taking a hammer to metal and making it move how I want it to.  So I taught myself the ancient art of forging a ring.  The Egyptians could do it 5,000 years ago, so why can’t we?  All it takes is a few tools, some scrap, a few hammers and go for it girl.  There are two rings displayed here.  One is made from a cast silver bar.  The second one was made from a combination of silver and copper wires that were twisted together and soldered into a bar.  Both bars were hand forged, the resulting wire was cut and soldered and the rings hammered finished.  Substantial.  Different.  Handmade.  And in the case of the silver one, recycled/repurposed. 

LizzieDesigns hallmark

That’s my hallmark folks.  You see this, I made it.

Thanks for sticking around and reading this post to the end.

janet

This image is one of a series of images that I captured photographically from pictographs in the Mojave desert of California while on a rock hounding trip. This image will be used in my jewelry in some form, most like as a etching and roller printing.

 OK, I said that I was N*E*V*E*R going to join Face Book.  There is too much of the old AOL from the early 90′s when AOL charged by the email and minute for use of their services.  Remember that?  When 14.4K was like burning light speed and everything you wanted could fit along with all of your programs) on a 200 meg hard drive?  Actually I go back to the 40 meg hard drives, but I regress. 

So I was never, ever, ever going to join Face book.  Yesterday I did.  Hell froze over.  The devil ordered ice skates.  All of that crap.

I’m not giving up on this blog.  But blogging for me takes a lot of time and dedication.  I spend an average of 15-20 hours per major post photographing, planning, writing, editing, spell checking, re-spell checking, re-re-spell checking, re-editing and finally, posting.  When I am busy and doing a lot of shows, that is a heavy burden. 

So Face Book is a new challenge.  I hope that I can do shorter pieces and eventually combine those into longer blog posts. 

Now, I am not by any means a Face Book expert, but my page is under my name, Janet Flecher, and not the business name, LizzieDesigns.  Please feel free to friend me and visit my wall.  yesterday I wrote about a ring I made the H*A*R*D way.  I melted some scrap, cast a round bar, forged the round bar into a half round, cut and soldered the ring and finally textured the ring with a hammer.

janet

This sterling ring was completely hand forged. Final texture was with Fetz hammers. NFS Estimated price $80 USD

This is just a really short post, with no photos and it is not about Jewelry or art.  Folks, I am an artist.  that is I take things and make other things out of them, things that I hope that others will find beautiful and, perhaps, buy.  I am not a computer expert.  I supply the content to this blog, and screen the comments.  believe me I screen a LOT more comments than I approve.  What I do not know how to do is really work the blog.  Nor can I fix the blog.  If you are having a technical problem with this blog, write to Blog.com, not to me.  If you like or don’t like the content of the blog, the editorial content that is, then write to me.  However, please don’t ask me to fix the blog or to make things work.  I have a very limited amount of time that I can dedicate to my posts.  It may not look like it, but a typical post takes me 16-24 hours of planning, photographing, writing, editing, and finally figuring out how to get this blog space to link the correct photos in the right places and finally publishing the post. If I was to even attempt to resolve the technical issues, that would take away from my blogging time. 

I do have a number of blog posts in the works.  I am currently working on a blog on rare stones that I have cut, this one should occur in a week or so. A blog post on Southern California stones,   most of which I have collected myself.  This blog will require that I actually deliberately cut some of the 25,000 lb of rough that I use to landscape our home.  And finally, a blog on opals, both precious and common.  This last one also needs a lot of cutting and setting work before it is ready. 

So bear with me.  There is just me, and I am really working as fast as I can.  Show season is over for the year, so I now have some time to work, photograph and finally, to write. 

janet

This is actually what my jewelers bench looks like after i finished cleaning it.

The last several months have been nonstop something or another.  And I am not sure of what.  I have a whole bunch of stuff, in stone, silver and glass, that I need to photograph and write about.  That said, it seems that the last 3-4 months have run together memory wise.  I suppose that at 58 I should begin to expect life to pass at a different rate, but I thought things slowed down a little bit.  Regardless, I need to write and the best place to start is with 8 plus 1 recent settings.  I call this group 8 plus 1 because 8 of the settings are identical as I ever make settings.  I’ll get back to them later.  And the “plus one”, that is my feeble attempt to replace the irreplaceable.  As many of you may know, last spring my partner and I had our home burglarized while we were off doing a show.  Our main loss was to our personal jewelry which we did not have with us.  One of the pieces that my partner lost was a blue light opal set in 14 kt yellow gold.  I don’t normally work in gold and this piece was one of the rare exceptions.  The opal was a light opal, that being an opal not classified as a black opal.  Confused?  The Australians came up with this naming system.    Basically if it ain’t white it is black, and if it is not black, it is called light.  Someday I’ll honestly try to explain.  The color was a really intense blue.  Needless to say that this was a special piece and one that she misses constantly.

So Saturday was a “creative day”, meaning we did not have a show (actually we did, we just blew it off due to the weather and exhaustion).  I really was having trouble getting motivated but eventually I did complete the set of eight that I’ll talk about in a bit.  Sunday I was at a total loss as to what to do.  I have a huge grinding/polishing project ongoing, but that makes a lot of really obnoxious noise, especially during the rough in stage that I am at and my partner was feeling a bit headachy, or was it me?  Regardless, I did not want all of the noise.  So I sat at my bench and this black opal jumped up and bit me on the nose and said “set me NOW!!!!”.

So I did.

Andamooka Black Matrix Opal. NFS

This stone is about 12×20 mm and the overall piece is 17x30mm.  the stone is an Andamooka Black Matrix Opal and shows a full rainbow of colors in a really intense pin fire pattern.  The setting is sterling.  This piece is not for sale, you just get to look at the photo and dream.  I am going to guess that this piece would sell for well over $500 if I had made it to sell.  Don’t you wish you were married to a lapidary artist and silversmith????

The eight.  Basically in this blog space I focus on the silversmith more than the lapidary.  But I am a lapidary artist first and I love to cut stones.  As a child I dreamed of being a pirate and having chests full of gems and jewelry.  I did not realize that the “chest” would end up being made of black plasticy cloth full of black plastic sample trays.  Oh well, be careful what you wish for.  So I love stones and I love to cut stones.  Really good stones want to be cut big.  The bigger the better.  Unfortunately there is an upper limit on what size people want to wear as jewelry.  30×40 mm stones are about that limit for most people.  Now, I have three stones I am working on right now that are far bigger than that, but usually in 30×40 mm you can tell the entire story.  The problem is, with a 30×40 stone most of your canvass jewelry wise is taken up by the stone.  That does not leave a lot of room for the silver.  And some stones, well, they just don’t need much in the way of silver to be framed.  Theeight stones I finished on Saturday fall into that category. 

That leaves the problem of how do you set a stone with a minimum of frame showing?  Wirewrap is a good alternative and one that I have used extensively in the past.  However wirewrap is not only a bit dated, it also has a technical issue, tarnish.  Wirewrap is extremely difficult to keep polished.  I no longer feel that it is worth the effort and and removed most of the silver wirewrap from my collection in the last 6 months.  Gold filled wire is cool, it stays nice and gold looking, but silver?  It just does not cut it for me anymore. 

The alternative that I use is step bezel wire.  This is a special product, available in sterling, that is designed to minimize the setting and to maximize the stone while still providing a silver frame.  Most silversmiths stay away from this wire as it is notorious for driving silversmiths crazy.  In silver, a few thousands of an inch are normally not a big deal.  I do a fair amount of jewelry repair and see a lot of older Southwest Indian jewelry.   This is high end stuff.  That said a lot of those pieces an 1/8″ is a really tight tolerance.  Silver just gives you a bit of room to fudge.  But not step bezel wire.  With this product you have to be spot on each and every time.  The tiniest fraction too small and the stone will never fit.  The tiniest fraction too big and you can never get the setting to properly grip the stone.  You also need almost perfectly cut stones.  The girdle, the outside rim of a cabochon, needs to be perfectly even and exactly the right height.  Rio Grande, my supplier, sells three different step bezel wires and each wire is designed for a different height girdle.  You need to know which wire you are going to use before you even cut your stone.  And finally there is the question of the backs.  Folks, look, I know that you are SUPOSED TO always polish the back of a stone, but why?  When you set a stone in a traditional silver setting or even in one of my pin settings, no one, absolutely no one, will ever see the back of the stone until the piece is destroyed.  But with step bezel settings, the back is totally visible for everyone to see.

And yes, I do have a couple of tricks that I use to minimize  my problems with this wire, but some secrets I just don’t share. . . .

This piece is 25mm x 35 mm and is the smallest of the seven stones I set with step bezel.  I like this stone as the orbs are well balanced by the warm reds in this stone.  Bruneau Jasper is a favorite of mine, however, it can be very difficult to find good cutting stock.  I seldom actually have any Bruneau in my collection as it tends to sell really quickly.  Price  $100 USD.

Indonesian Star Patterned Coral

This stone is Indonesian Star Patterned Coral.  This coral is a silicon dioxide replacement of the calcium carbonate.  That means it is a petrified coral like petrified wood or dino bone.   This material is different from Petrosky’s Stone from Michigan, which is a non-petrified coral, being that it remains calcium carbonate, or limestone.  I’ve been cutting the Indonesian material for several years and believed that this was the only source for the silicon dioxide version.  Recently a friend of mine passed away and the last time that I saw him before his death he informed me that the silicon dioxide coral that I had purchased from him (and never used, imagine that) 5-6 years ago was actually from Panama.  More specifically he told me that he had collected it himself from a reef off of the Panamanian coast (not sure east of west coast, he never said).   He also told me that the last time he had visited the reef, a storm blew up unexpectedly and the trip back to the mainland was bad enough to convince him that his life was not worth a few pieces of rock.  The star pattern in this rock is unusual.  About 1/2% of the Indonesian Coral imported shows this pattern.  The really nice thing about this coral is that it is a fossil, you are not hurting a living reef when the material is collected.  Someday I intend to figure out the exact process under which this coral is petrified, but for now, I just enjoy.  Priced at $85 USD.  The stone is 30×40 mm.

Sci-Fi Jasper

Porcelain or Sci-Fi jasper, what is not to love?  A few shows ago I encounter this rose Sci-Fi Jasper.  I own a LOT of the Porcelain or blue version of this stone and was thrilled to be able to purchase some of the rose.  A nice, clean cutting stone, I would recommend this material to anyone just starting out who wanted a LOT of bang for their buck.  This piece is 30×40 and is priced at $80 USD.

White Fortification Agate with Druze

I’m not really sure why I did this piece.  It is a section of a white banded fortified agate.  I don’t know where I bought it or collected it.  I don’t remember slabbing it.  The blank was just there and it got cut and it looked like it wanted to be set.  There is some shadow effect, but I would not call it a shadow agate.  Still it is a nice quite piece.  The stone is about 28 x 37 mm and is priced at $75 USD.  There is a small touch of druze in the center.

Red Moss Agate

Moss agate, especially really good moss agate is a stone that you can get lost in.  It is like there is a tiny world inside of this stone that you just want to explore.  This is truthfully one of those stones that just speak for themselves.  Once again, I do not have a source for this stone.  It simply came from my extensive collection of cutting material.  I probably bought it off of someone as it is far and away above the quality of the moss agate I have seen and/or collected from the Mojave Desert of California.  I know, I know, YOU know of and/or have a better one that did come from Mojave Desert, but I have never seen it and since this is my blog, that is all that really matters.  Size is 30×40 mm and it is prices at $80.

Sonora Sunrise

Sonora Sunrise is a relatively new stone.  I’ve been cutting it since last January when I acquired some in Quartzsite.   Recently I learned that the material is classified as a chrysocolla.  The piece that I have has outstanding colors, but it does not take a really high gloss finish as some of this material does.  That said, I like the semi-matte finish on the stone.  It is different.  I would not cut a stone a deliberately leave it unpolished, but there is something really interesting about this material since it is not a typical high gloss, same as every other stone type of finish.  Kind of like the way that a lot of dino bone undercuts and takes a leathery texture, only different.  Anyway, it is really, really attractive.  This stone is a 30 x 40 mm and is priced at $125 USD.

Rainbow Dino Bone

Rainbow Dino Bone Reverse Side

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I L*O*V*E dino bone.  That’s short for dinosaur bone for those not in the know.   To me to be able to cut the remains of an animal that lived over 65 million years ago into beautiful jewelry is a honest thrill.  Now, here is a fact you may not know,  When you cut dino bone you can smell something.  Here’s the thing.  65 million years and petrifaction from calcium carbonate bone into silicon dioxide (quartz if you didn’t know) rock is supposed to remove all of the “organic” smells.  But it still smells when you cut it.  Kind of like crude oil if you have ever had the opportunity to smell raw crude oil just out of the ground.  I grew up in Pennsylvania oil and gas country and have had many opportunities to get real close to the hundred year old wells.  This bone smells like crude oil when you cut it.  So is there some organics left in the rock?  I don’t know.

This pendant is cut from rainbow dino bone.  Rainbow dino bone implies that there are a full rainbow, or at least a variety of colors present in the agatized centers of the cellular bone structure.  The darker matrix being the remains of the actual bone.  Dinosaurs are apparently birds, or birds descended from dinosaurs, whatever.  But what is important is that the bones are hollow and very light compared to mammal bones.  So your leg bones will not quite look like this after 65 million years, OK?  The second photo shows what the back of the step bezel wire settings look like.  Just showed you this one, you can imagine all of the rest.  Size is 30 x 40 mm and price is $125USD.  Oh OK, this is not exactly a full rainbow, but have you ever priced the really, really, really good stuff?

Lace Dino Bone

Lace Dino Bone View Looking Into Blue Sky

Several years ago while buying dino bone slabs I found one that was cut exceptionally thin for dino bone.  I asked the vender at Quartzsite about it and he told me to hold it up and look through it.  It was a sheet of lace.  I bought it.  I seldom cut it.  I doubt that I will ever be able to buy another slab.  I’m showing you two views, one against the black velvet background I usually photograph against and the second holding the pendant up to the blue sky and photographing through it.   It is as perfect a lace as you ever want to see.  Size is 30×40 and price is $250USD.

Mollie

More Mollie

When I downloaded the photo’s for this post I also downloaded the photos from out annual migration to and from the fisheries of the mighty Owens River in the Long Valley Super Volcano Caldara near Mammoth Lakes, California.   Amongst those photos were these two photos of our Golden retriever, Mollie.  I know that these are not jewelry related but really is a jewel and I just had to share.

janet

28 x 37 mm overall with a 16 x 20 mm Pietersite stone from Namibia in Africa. The stone was cut by Sunwest Silver. The colors in this stone are as deep and transfixing in real life as in the photograph. Recycled hammered sterling silver setting. $250 USD

Sometimes the whole green thing has me confused.  I’m a lapidary artist, a silversmith, and a fusion or warm glass artist.  I do other arts too, but for now, let’s leave the discussion at just these three.  In recent months I have been reading ever greater amount of articles in the trade journals about recycled or green jewelry.  Coming from an artistic background that included running and owning a high end cabinet shop for almost 20 years, I cut my eye-teeth in the antiques trade.  I left the cabinet trade about 15 years ago and it was really close to 20 or 25 years since I was really active in restoring antiques.  Antiques are green.  Antiques are recycled.   You can’t get much more green than restoring the legs to a 150 year old table that has spent the last 100 years as the hog slop table in some old barn.  Yes I really did restore the legs to a table that was used in the hog pen of a barn for roughly 100 year.  When I got it the table was about 15-16 inches tall off the ground.  Tables are usually about 30 inches in height.  The difference rotted off.  Oh yea, the table sold about 30 years ago for over $1,000.  Go figure.

 But green or recycled in jewelry?  Antique jewelry is obviously recycled.  But I can’t make antique jewelry.  And I make jewelry, I don’t make a living repairing jewelry (lately I haven’t been making a living making jewelry much either, but what -the-h%#@, I’m at least having fun trying).  From the stand point of a glass artist I need to use extremely tightly controlled materials with highly regulated and controlled properties or the processes do not work.  Glass is that way, you have to know exactly what you are using to do any technique that requires heating or melting glass at temps of over 1100 degree F.  And as far as lapidary is concerned, the only way you can recycle is to reuse old stones.  I’m not sure that buying out old collection that have never been cut is recycling.  I suppose that it is green.  It is better to cut material that is already mined and has been in storage in someone’s backyard of garage than mining the same rock over again.

Silver, and metals in general, are a different matter.  Metals are recyclable.  In fact there is one metal resource out there that only sells green or recycled silver.  Metals, and I’m leaving the discussion to precious metals and their close relatives in the periodic table, have been around for a long time.  Metals, like gold, copper, and silver, are elements.  And like all heavy elements, were created in the death of massive stars billions of years ago.  That is if you believe in science.  If you prefer creationism then the metals were created by God in something like 4600 BCE in something like 7 days.  I prefer the billions of years and dead star theory myself, but each to his or her own.  Basically on the planet there are no new metals.  What we have today is all we will ever have until we can figure out how to either 1) convince God to make some more (should only take a day or two of his time, right???) or 2) figure out how to make some in a reactor or 3) go somewhere else like the moon and bring some home.  The first choice seems reasonable cost wise, the last two are a bit expensive.  So basically unless we can all pray to God to forget ending wars, fighting hunger, stopping oil leaks, keeping young girls from getting pregnant and all the other important things we ask him to do and spend a few days making us some more gold and silver, what we got is what we got.  Interestingly enough, most of what we got we lock up and throw the key away.  Most of the Gold in the US of A is locked up in a big box in Kentucky called Fort Knox.  A lot of the silver is tied up in magnetrons, which were used to separate uranium isotopes for making bombs (side effect, makes the magnetrons radioactive so they just sit around doing not much these days).  During WWII some really smart scientists figured out that 1) silver is roughly 15% more conductive than copper (means stronger magnets) and 2) the government had a lot of silver just sitting around not doing much.  So they made magnetrons out of it and used the copper to build planes, tanks and war ships..

All joking aside, the metals we have is what we have.  Every year it takes more energy and more labor to mine the same amount of metal.  The mines are deeper, the ores are poorer, and the costs just go up.  The interesting thing is this has virtually always been this way.  Precious metals have always been rare and increasingly hard to find, mine and refine.  So salvage and recycling is nothing new in the metal industry.  The precious metals you are wearing today can be newly mined, or they can have been used many times in many different ways over thousands of years.  And you can’t tell.  There is no test, no process, no method of telling the history of the metals in the jewelry that you own and wear.

OK, so I want to go green, what can I do?  The only real answer is to recycle my own scrap.  To come up with processes and methods that allow me to take scrap and to re-use this metal without sending it to a processer.  To re-process my own scrap on my own, in my own studio.  This has led to the development of a style of work that both uses as much recycled silver as possible and also allows for a distinct artistic look or style that i hope to be associated with.

I recently completed a large purchase of “new” silver.  I say new because it is new to me.  Some if it comes from a company that actively solicits silver scrap and some of it from a company that only sells products that are made from 100% recycled silver.  In addition to these purchases, I also traded some work for a respectable amount of silver scrap and I scraped about 50-60 pieces of my own work that I felt had beco0me very dated.  Jewelry, like every art, but especially every wearable art, goes in cycles.  What is hot today is cold tomorrow.  Techniques that are cutting edge today are dated next week.  Some pieces do indeed stand the test of time and some pieces are. . . let’s just say that in hindsight the baby should have been left unborn.  I’ve made a few of the first type, and a whole lot of the second.  Tim McGunn on Project Runway (yes I am a fan and watch every second of the show and read all the online comments the next morning. . . it IS a design show you know) talks a lot about editing.  Editing your collection and editing your individual pieces.  Selecting what you have done that is really good and walking away from all the rest.  I still have a few pieces of wire wrap left.  But those too will someday soon see the “ax”.  So I have have a lot of new material and the freedom to reuse a lot of old material in new ways.  This artistic freedom is very precious.  This is the freedom to create, to design, to make, to explore. 

22 guage sterling silver wire waiting to be remelted

Sterling and Fine Silver scrap shown with Fretz hammer and several pieces under construction using recycled silver

The pieces in this post are all made from “post consumer” (i.e. me or my friends) recycled metal with the additional of small amounts of purchased metals that I cannot make myself.  All of the pieces are designed to showcase both the stone and the individuality of the metal settings.  Each piece is unique.  If you are interested in any piece in this post please contact me at LizzieDesigns@verizon.net for additional information.

Enjoy

janet

40 x 40 mm overall with a 20 x 20 mm Indonesian Coral stone. Setting is recycled Sterling Silver and is hand forged and hammer textured. $125 USD

38 x 48 mm overall with a 22 x 25 mm Russian Ammonite. This is an unusual cut so it does not show the normal Ammonite spiral patterning. Russian Ammonite are Iron Pyrite replacement after Calcium Carbonate. The crystal lined interior is also known as Marcasite crystals. The setting is recycled Sterling Silver that has been torch reticulated and textured after hand forging. $200USD

30 x 42 mm overall with a 16 x 28 mm hand cut Lake Superior Agate. The setting is recycled Sterling Silver and is hand forged and hammer textured. $125 USD

30 x 50 mm overall with a 35 mm carved lizard??? the stone was a gift from another vendor at a show last fall. The setting is recycled Reticulation (80/20) Silver and is hand forged and torch reticulated and shaped. NSF Estimated value is $125 USD

30 x 45 mm overall with a 11 x 24 mm Fox Turquoise Nugget. Setting is Sterling Silver and is hand forged and hammer textured. 125 USD

35 x 62 mm overall with a 24 x 40 mm Kingman Blue Turquoise Stone. Stone was not weighed but estimated to be approx. 40 ct. Setting is rec ycled Sterling Silver and is hand forged and hammer textured. NSF Estimated value is $400 USD

25 x 38 mm overall with a 12 x 21 mm Blue Chalcedony stone. The setting is Reticulation Silver (80/20) and is torch reticulated and torch shaped. $165 USD

30 x 47 mm overall with a 14 x 33 mm Blue Peacock Turquoise stone. This stone is from the Peacock Mine in Landers Nevada. The setting is recycled Sterling Silver and is hand forged and hammer textured. $425USD

26 x 46 mm overall with a 11 x 20 mm 10.5 ct Black Andamooka Opal doublet. The sterling silver setting is hand forged and torch shaped and hammered textured on the front and torch textured on the back. $450 USD

32 x 42 mm overall with a 15 x 25 mm 16.5 ct Black Andamooka Opal doublet. This is a very high end opal with very strong play of color. the Sterling Silver setting is hand forged from recycled silver and features a matte finish. $650 USD

In mid March of 2010, I was asked by two very different lapidary artists to do a series of custom settings for a total of nine of their stones.  Both artesians not only cut the stones they asked me to set, they also mined them. 

Charles Kramer, of Vagabond Mining is a contract miner in the Southwest of the United States.  Charles contracts out to small mine owners, above and below ground, and often takes a portion of the rough in payment.  I met Charles at the Stoddard Wells Tailgate sponsored by the Victor Valley Gem and Mineral Club of Victorville, California.  Charles has some awesome Candelaria Hills Turquoise that he had helped mine several years ago.  Charles also had some water clear topaz in the rough that I just had to have so we made a trade, his topaz and turquoise for my silver.  Below are the 4 stones that I set for him.  If you are interested in any of these pendants, contact me by email and I will put you in touch with him.  As of the time of my writing this blog, Charles had not yet seen the finished pieces and has not priced them for retail sale.

Candaleria Hills Turquoise, 27 mm x 40 mm overall. Candaleria Hills Turquoise, 22 mm x 35 mm overall

Candaleria Hills Turquoise, 35 mm x 52 mm overall

Candaleria Hills Turquoise, 28 mm x 45 mm overall

Candaleria Hills Turquoise, 22 mm x 35 mm overall

Janet Sechler and her husband George own Oasis Prospecting, the miners and importers of Royal Sahara Jasper, which I have both cut and set and featured on previous blogs.  Since we met in January, Janet has wanted to have me set some of her stones in silver as a contrast to the work of other silversmiths she features both in her website and also at the shows she attends.  In March, also at the Stoddard Wells Tailgate, we were finally able to sit down and select 5 stones.  My instructions were very specific, “Make them shiny like Mary Lou’s pendant.”  The pendant in question was a green faceted stone (either tourmaline or a light green garnet) set in a basket setting on a piece of hand forged reticulation silver.  This pendant was recently lost and is no longer available for me to photograph due to a large jewelry theft we recently suffered.  When I kept asking her for more clarity, she kept telling me “shiny, but not too heavy”. 

The stones we choose were fairly large and for the reticulation to show, I have to go even larger on the silver work.  I mix all of my reticulation silver on a charcoal block and hand forge the piece to get the results I want.  As I like deep reticulation patterns, I need to go fairly thick, which translates into fairly heavy.  This time I limited my alloy weight to about 14-16 grams, light for this size stones, and I hand forged the pieces down to the desired thickness.  The thinness of the reticulation resulted in a different pattern that I personally might have chosen, but it definitely was the look that I had been asked to make.  And I most likely will work with the thinner forged reticulation blanks again in the future.  Diversity is a good thing in any art.

Weighing the silver. I closely control the weights of all the ingots I forge, both reticulation and sterling silver. This photo shows a preliminary weight of sterling silver scrap. I will adjust this weight and then add 10-12% of copper by weight to brng the alloy to approximately 80/20 reticulation silver.

Raw reticulation silver ingot before forging

These 5 reticulation silver ingots were used for the Royal Sahara Jasper Pendants

5 reticulation blanks, ready for setting stones

Once the silver work was completed I married the stones to the silver and personally feel that I have success.  They are clearly Janet Sechler’s stones and clearly my “shiny” settings.  If you are interested in any of these pendant, and to see additional pieces of Janet Sechler’s work, contact Oasis Prospecting at royalsaharajasper@hotmail.com or visit their website at www.royalsaharajasper.com.

Pendant overall size is 32mm x 75 mm. Stone is Royal Sarah Jasper and is a 20mm x 55mm freeform. This stone was cut by: Sam Silverhawk: Owner of Silverhawk's Designer Gems http://samsilverhawk.com/gems1.html

Pendant overall size is 35 mm x 70 mm. Stone is Royal Sarah Jasper and is a 25 mm x 60 mm freeform.

Pendant overall size is 45 mm x 80 mm. Stone is Royal Sarah Jasper and is a 25 mm x 58 mm freeform.This stone was cut by: Sam Silverhawk: Owner of Silverhawk's Designer Gems http://samsilverhawk.com/gems1.html

Pendant overall size is 40mm x 80 mm. Stone is Royal Sarah Jasper and is a 25mm x 70mm freeform.

Pendant overall size is 40mm x 70 mm. Stone is Royal Sarah Jasper and is a 20mm x 50mm freeform.

This last week I have been focusing on Royal Sahara Jasper.  I purchased this material at Quartzsite off of Oasis Prospecting and was asked by Oasis Prospecting if I would be willing to work up a handful of pieces to include on their website.  Needless to say, I was thrilled with the offer and that was the driving force behind this week’s work.

I slabbed the two nodules I purchased last Wednesday.  The material slabbed with no issues.  The pieces were easy to clamp and the work went as expected.  Of the two nodules that I had selected, one piece went really well, and the second, well it was a bit darker than expected, still usable, but definitely not what I had hoped for.

Roayl Sahara Jasper slabs.

Cabbing the material was a bit harder than I anticipated.  This material is hard.  I use a Hitech flat lap for all of my cabbing.  This machine is not only a lot more economical than a Genie, but it is also tremendously  cleaner.  I have cabbed well over 1,000 stones on this unit over the years, and I must honestly say that this material was as hard as anything that I have ever cabbed.  My experience puts Royal Sahara Jasper in the same hardness range as Larimar about a 8 in hardness.  The material is also very tough.  Unlike Larimar, which I find extremely brittle, this material showed very little propensity to chip.  I took the material up to 1200 grit on the sanding pads, then finished with a mixture of 14,000 grit diamond and optical grade cerium oxide.  It was effortless to achieve a fantastic polish, however, it took longer than I expected as the Royal Sahara Jasper requires a lot of work to achieve a perfect, even polish.  My first sanding grit is 220.  I have never seem any material give an honest finished look at 220 grit sanding before.    I have frequently seen worse polishes on commercial stones than I achieved at the point.

Royal Sahara Jasper cabochons on dop sticks.

I decided originally on setting 5 pieces, 4 of which I have completed.  The fifth stone, in many ways my favorite, is calling for a design that needs some custom components before I can move forward.  The 4 will have to do for now.

The first piece I worked on is a traditional bezel set pendant  done in a matte sterling silver finish.  This stone was from the darker of the two nodules.  The stone has a very strong resemblance to Biggs Jasper.  The stone is approximately 30×40 mm and is actually freeform.  The finished piece is 55×38 mm.  The bail is fabricated out of a scrap of pattern wire I had laying on the bench.  I choose a matte finish on the sterling silver to accent the polish on the stone.  Matte finishes can shift the focus from the silver work to the stone if done correctly.

It may look like Biggs Jasper, but it really is Roayal Sahara Jasper set in matte finish sterling silver. Sold

The second piece is 35x50mm freeform pin set on a 68×45 mm piece of reticulated silver.  The silver in this piece is almost 1.25 ounces total weight.  The setting was forged from an ingot that was alloyed on a charcoal block, one of my favorite techniques.  Pin setting is a variation of prong setting and a technique that I use when I want to focus on the entire stone.  I always cut my stones with about a 6-7 degree girdle bevel.  This angle allows the pin settings to tightly grip the  stone without having to cover any of the face of the stone.  The piece was finished with a jump ring bail.

Royal Sahara Jasper pin set onto hand forged and alloyed reticulation silver

The final pendant is a 26×45 mm freeform stone set on a 40×60 mm piece of hand forged and textured Argentium Siler.  Argentium Silver is a fairly new type of Sterling Silver and is 92.5% fine silver by weight.  The setting weight is just over one ounce.  As with the reticulated pendant, final polish was tumbled with mixed stainless steel shot.  Once again, the bail is a soldered jump ring.  Yes, I actually solder my jump rings, especially after Carl Stanley chewed my butt out for not doing so more than once.  Carl Stanley is a well known master silver smith working in the Southern California market.

Freeform Royal Sahara Jasper cabochon pin set on forged Argentium Silver

The final piece of this set is a sterling ring.  The 15×28 mm freeform stone is bezel set on a 25×38 mm hand forged and textured backing.  The ring utilizes 6mm double half round for the bail and is currently sized at 10.5 American.  This is a large ring.  However, whoever wears it will get noticed.

Royal Sahara Jasper ring featuring a hand frged and textured setting

Side view of a Royal Sahara Jasper sterling silver ring.

I am pleased with the Royal Sahara Jasper.  I like the look of the material, although slow to work, it takes a phenomenal finish.  I have as of now only set this material in silver.  The fifth piece that has yet to be started will either be bronze or a combination of bronze and silver.  I am hoping that the warmth of the stone will be highlighted even more with a strong bronze patina.  I plan on acquiring additional nodules of this material as soon as possible.  At approximately $32 USD per pound, this is not necessarily a beginners material.  That said, the experience cutter will enjoy working with this material.

All four pieces are currently available.  Contact us at LizzieDrums@verizon.net if you are interested.

janet

So we went to Quartzsite (I have been informed that I have been spelling it wrong. . . I get “informed” about things like this quite regularly it seems).  What can I say, it is Quartzsite.  Quratzsite, like Tucson, is a amalgamation of shows occurring within a period of time, but not necessarily at the same time or over lapping.  Confusing?  Try going there.  Although, from a lapidary perspective we go to the Quartzsite shows to further our artistic needs, most people who are in Quartzsite in January are there for another reason, the relative heat.  Quartzsite is a snowbird’s heaven.  the town exists for the winter months when snowbirders from the western US and Canada flock to the town for the  relative warmth.  The companionship and shows are added benefits.  In Quartzsite it is said that if you are willing to walk enough rows of enough shows you can literally buy anything legal in the United States.  I wouldn’t know, there is no way that I am going to walk endless miles looking for something that I do not need and do not want when I can buy rocks.

At Quartzsite you truly can find anything. This golden goddess, still in the packing crate, was over 7 feet tall and about 4 feet wide. This wooden carving was one of dozens of similarly sized pieces

This Mookaite slab was over 36 inches long, about 18 inches high and about 3-4 inches thick. Price, $5,000.00 USD. Oh yes, there actually was a mirrored pair, just think you could have both for only $10,000.00 USD. Interested?

Come on, what woman does not want a new rock?  OK, for most women, that means diamond, but for myself and others like me, it means . . . just what the word says, rocks.  At Quartzsite there exists a distinct possibility that you can buy a greater variety of rocks than anywhere else on the planet, except perhaps Tucson in February. 

I bought rocks.  Not all the rocks I wanted mind you.  I could never afford all the rocks that I want.  But I bought enough high end material that I do not have that my cases will definitely have something new this coming year. 

The Desert Gardens show is perhaps the main Rock and Gem show.  This multi acre site features hundreds of venders who primarily sell rocks, gems, minerals, tools, and jewelry.  There are a few other venders, but the vast majority are selling something I want.  The problem is that most of the venders are selling some type to rock that I want.  So we devote most of our time and attention to Desert Gardens.  Out of everything offered I was able to pick up a few materials that I had never seen before.  As always, the Australians had quantity, quality, respectable prices and something new.  This year I picked up a fossilized shell material from India off of them.  My friend Cyndy bought Mookaite, Cherry Quartz, Goldstone, and I believe Labordorite.

This piece of Mookaite was for sell in Desert Gardens, and at about $3.00 per pound, slightly more affordable.

If you are looking for fancy displays and packaging, then Quartzsite is not a place you want to go. The barrels under the pallets were originally filled with rough gem stone when shipped to the US from Australia.

Blue and red goldstone. It is actually a glass. Confused yet?

One of my favorite dealers, miners from Oregon, had something called ( I think!!!!  I see so much that sometimes I honestly forget what I buy!) Cherry  Jasper.  This material was available in slabs from several venders and was selling really well.

This photo is a close up of a material sold as "Cherry Jasper". I'm not sure about the name, but I am sure about the material, this is going to make some fantastic jewelry.

But the big find at Desert Gardens was Royal Sahara Jasper from Sudan and Egypt.   This material has been on the market for several years, however this was the first time I was able to connect with the miners/importers and purchase several pieces.  I have spent more money per pound for a lot of rocks, but this was the most expensive Jasper I have ever bought.  You can view this material and read the fantastic storey of its discovery at http://royalsaharajasper.3dcartstores.com/.

Royal Sahara Jasper is one of the newest of the porcelain scenic jaspers. This material is being mined in the Eastern Sahara in Sudan and Egypt. All of the nodules (usually 1-4" in size) are windowed as only about 2% of the nodules mined show this fantastic imagery when cut.

You will be seeing more of this piece of Royal Sahara Jasper as I slab, cut, and make this gorgeous stone into jewelry

The Tyson Wells Gem show always has some interesting material.  This is an opportunity for us to replenish supplies at Pueblo Traders, who have one of the largest booths in all of the shows, and also visit a few old friends.  The Andamooka Black Matrix Opal miners were there, and of course tempted us into buying more black opal.  Now who doesn’t need more black opal?  The typical way that opal is sold is in baby food or other small jars in water.  These guys came up with the idea that they gave you an empty baby food jar and allowed you to select the pieces your wanted.  The neat thing was you not only got to fill the jar, but stack as much opal on top as you could.  I filled a jar for myself and for Cyndy.  let’s just say that the miners got nervous and I think they are going to impose a time limit on this.  After we bought the black opal, we went to leave a saw a tray filled with light (white based) Coober Pedy opal that just took your breath away.  The material was top rate and the lot was extremely large.  Cyndy and I finally negotiated a price and purchased the lot to be split between us.

This incredible slab of Andamooka Black Matrix Opal shows the entire range of colors found within this magnificent material. Retail on this slab alone would be well over $1,000.00 USD

These are not Mexican Chilies, but red coral beads. I see some really "red hot" pendants in my future.

Our next stop was at Sunwest Silver.  Over the years we have developed a really strong relationship with these folks and buy off them every year.  Sunwest is a major jewelry and supplies dealer located in Albuquerque, New Mexico.  Sunwest owns a number of turquoise mines, but also has loads of jewelry, cabochons, and their own line of silver findings.  I have repeatedly stated that if I lived in Albuquerque, I would not cut stone.  These guys have fantastic stuff.  We bought two pieces of high grade material here, a fantastic piece of Wild Horse Magnesite and a piece of Peruvian pink opal.  The pink opal is a type of common opal, but with a fantastic color.  I also bought a “grab bag” of White Buffalo that weighs about 1 lb.  And I picked up a really nice selection of Indonesian Coral cabochons.

This slab of Wild Horse Magnesite is destined to made into fine jewelry by LizzieDesigns.

Indonesian Coral Cabochons in a variety of colors and patterns. These cabs are quartz replacement of the original calcium carbonate (limestone) coral.

The Tyson Wells show has several sections and we revisited the show several times.  On our last trip into town we stopped in a section of the shoe we usually pass by.  There was one dealer in particular who’s merchandise really interested us.  This dealer had red and white banded Lake Superior Agates.  Cyndy bought several, however unfortunately for me we had already exceeded our show budget so this fantastic material has to wait till our next visit.

This selection of Lake Superior Agates, averaging about 1 1/2" in size, was price at close to $2,000.00 USD. This collection was only available in its entirety was obviously for serious collectors only.

And we can never go to Quartzsite without visiting T-Rocks.  Theresa and Mike, the owners are old friends and we look forward to stopping in and seeing what new materials these two have to offer.  T-Rocks is a rare bird in the Quartzite gem and mineral world, they remain open year round.  T-Rocks features a huge selection of both slabs and rough and are well worth the stop if you are ever passing through this town.

T-Rocks has an extremely wide selection of both rough and slabs at reasonable prices.

This year’s show was like always, both a rush of excitement and a disappointment that we could not come home with everything that we wanted.  In so many ways, Quartzsite is like Christmas for adults.  A tremendous rush of anticipation and excitement coupled with a taste of reality and financial limitations.  Beyond the buying aspect of our trip, there is a fantastic reconnection with old friends and the making of new friends.  it is a wonderful pleasure to spend some time with people whom you share so much.  People who understand your excitement over some “silly stupid rock”.  And as always, we left with a new appreciation of the beauty that the hidden resources of the earth, its gems and minerals, really have.  To be able to spend four days wondering past row after row, booth after booth, table after table of fantastic specimens and know that there is no way you could ever see all of it is an experience that anyone who loves jewelry, gems, and minerals has to experience once in their lives.

Amethyst, Amethyst druse, and Amethyst Cathedrals were available at venders all over Quartzsite.

The end.

I was asked to show a few more pieces in todays blog.  These pieces are typical of the direction that we are currently working.  All of these pieces are currently avaiable for purchase.  If you are interested, or desire additional information about these pieces, please contact us at LizzieDrums@verizon.net.

This pendant is a stunning piece of variegated Kingman Blue. It is bezel set into Argentium Sterling Silver. Argentium Sterling Silver is a relatively new silver alloy that is very tarnish resistant. The piece features a "P" bail and is 32 x 46 mm over all.

This 3 piece set is Ribbon Turquoise from the Royston Mine in Tonapah Nevada. All three stones are backed. The pendant measures 28x37 mm and the earrings are approx. 15x26 mm. The pieces are bezel set in Argentium Sterli9ng Silver

This Piece is very large. The overall size of the piece is 60 x 80 mm and the overall weight is 66.2 grams or about 2.3 ounces. The pendant base is hand forged reticulation silver and is simply massive. The stone is a 35x65 mm freeform and is 11 mm thick. This massive stone was cut from Peacock Turquoise. The Peacock Turquoise mine is located in Northern Nevada and has been operation for approximately 2 years. The stone weighs 162.25 ct. The stone is pin set. This piece is definitely one of a kind.

This pendant features a 16x35 mm amethyst druze bezel set onto a approx. 30x60 mm hand forged and hand textured sterling silver base. The piece is completed with a soldered jump ring.

This pendant is red and white dinosaur bone. Dinosaur Bone is only collectable on private lands. This specimen came from the Morrison Formations in Moab region in Utah. The 22x40 mm teardrop shaped stone is set in a bezel setting or Argentium Sterling Silver and features a "P" bail. The overall size is 24x56 mm.

Many people spend their year looking forward to Christmas.  With all of the excitement of buying gifts, packages to open, friends and family we seldom see throughout the year.  This is a time of the Holidays and festivity.

Then there are the rock hounds and lapidary artists.  For these folks Christmas is just an afterthought .  For us, because I am one of these mysterious people who seemingly worship at another alter, December is just a prelude, a ramp up to January.   Because only in January does Quartzite occur.

Oh I know, first and foremost, quartzite is a rock found around the world, even in remote places like Pennsylvania.  And then there is the simple fact that Quartzite is a town in Arizona.  If you have ever driven east to west on Interstate 10 going from or to California you may have even stopped there to get a burger and most likely to fill your tank.  With summer temps well into the 100′s you most likely looked around this seemingly dying town and wondered why anyone in their right mind would even consider living in a place as destitute as this.

But come late November and early December everything changes.  This sleeping desert town changes from a sweltering backwater truck stop of about 3,000 souls to a virtual city numbering in the hundreds of thousands.

But that is not exactly the Quartzite that I am talking about either.  I am talking about Quartzite the event.  In my world, a world basically inhabited by crazy people like myself, Quartzite is the event.  For the Rock and Gem and Lapidary worlds there are two major “holydays”.  These are two times each year when everything else becomes secondary to the necessity to make the annual pilgrimage to at least one of these events.  These events are first Quartzite and the Tucson.   In our own twisted world, we personally just celebrate Quartzite.  Tucson is for a slightly different sect of rock and gem nuts.

In my world, whenever you meet anyone who shares this mental space with you, there are two questions that are always asked.  The first is “Going to Quartzite this year?”  And the second is “Buying or selling?”

For us Quartzite is a buying trip.  For the lapidary artist, stone is the raw material.  Lapidary artist are a group of people who have the ability to take a stone found seemingly at random on some distant mountain and turn that stone into something we all recognize as a gem.  To put that into a nut shell, the ability to take a seemingly random piece of rock found in the back yard and turn that rock into something people are willing to spend real dollars for.  Sometimes huge dollars for.  Just this morning the LA Times ran an article about The Black Star of Queensland, a 733 ct. black star sapphire.  This “rock” was found by a young child and considered by his miner father as completely worthless and consigned to the role of keeping the back door open until a gem buyer recognized it for what it really is.  The current value of this door stop is over $5,000,000.00 USD.  That’s 5 million folks.

For lapidary artists, Quartzite is an event where we honestly believe that we will be able to find a seemingly piece of junk stone and turn it into something that will both last and excite for ages.  And also be worth some “real” money.

Quartzite, the event, is actually a series of “shows” that occur during the month of January in the town of Quartzite, Arizona where miners, collectors, and buyers from all over the world come together to buy and sell these seemingly valueless pieces of rock.  Most of us realize that we will never find a piece of sapphire that will cut into a perfect 733ct. star sapphire.  But we do know that if we diligently search the tables of every vendor in attendance we might find a handful of very rough slices of a turquoise nodule (think small hand sized chunk) that was misidentified by the seller for $1.00 each.  Not a bad deal when you realize that those turquoise slices (called slabs) were cut into finished gem stones worth hundreds of dollars each.  I did good that day.

Lapidary artists can not exactly travel to the local craft store mini-mart and find their raw material.   We can and often do, travel into the local back country to see what stone and rock we can find that is cutable and has at least a small amount of value.  But we always want more than that, more rocks and better rocks and different rocks and more valuable rocks than are locally available to us.  We can, and frequently do, use EBay and other websites to track down the rocks we want.  But there is nothing like actually being able to hold the rough rocks in your hands out in the desert sun and being able to personally choose which specific pieces of seemingly worthless rock we want to buy so that we can personally turn that “junk” into something that will last for and be treasured for  . . perhaps forever?  And there are no places, no events, that compares to Quartzite and Tucson  when it comes to availability, selection and possibly prices for  “just simple rock”, just doorstops.

So today I begin the process of getting ready for Quartzite.  It’s kind of like getting ready for Christmas.  There are a host of preparations to make.  Like the vast majority of individuals who make this yearly pilgrimage to Quartzite we will be dry camping.  For us this means making sure that our travel trailer is ready to make the trip, filled with water, food and . . . well other “stuff”.  We do celebrate from time to time when we make that really, really, really, really good deal for what we hope will be worth as much as The Black Star of Queensland.  You know, that “stuff”.  And then we will definitely need to get the truck ready.  That’s today’s task, the dreaded Oil Change.  Tomorrow I will begin un-winterizing the trailer, turning up the heat, charging the batteries, filling the tanks and the fridge.  Thursday is loading the clothes, making all of the last minute arrangements that we need and finally hooking up the trailer.   This is like Christmas Eve for a small child.  You know that in the morning great things will happen.  As all young children do on Christmas morning, we will arise early, barely shower, load the dogs and get the “heck” out of Dodge.  Along the way we will meet up with friends, who have gone through their own week of preparations and excitement, and we will caravan across the wide open reaches of the California and Arizona deserts to reach our ultimate goal . . .  Quartzite!

That is what Quartzite is friends.  A type of rock, a city in the middle of one of the hottest places in this country, an event, and that Christmas morning you had as a child, all wrapped up in one.

I have had a standing request for some time to share a few photos of my recent work with a number of other artists.  That possed a problem as last summer my kind-of-slr digital camera decided that it no longer wanted to do “stuff”.  I’m an artist, not a technical geek so when technical stuff does not want to work . . .

To make a long story short, recently, like for Christmas, we decided to purchase a new Cannon digital SLR, and I felt that I died and went into camera heaven.  Anyway, below are a few pieces that I recently completed.

Russian Ammonite 20x30 mm commercial cut. The setting is 40x50mm hand forged and hand textured sterling silver with a soldered jump ring for a bail.

20x20 cushion cut titanium plated agate/druse. The stone is bezel set on a 30x30 hand forged and hand texture sheet with a soldered jump ring bail.

The stone is an approx. 20 x 30 mm freeform plated druzy. The setting is about 30x40mm and featured a bezel setting on a hand forged and textured sheet. The bail is a soldered jump ring.

So . . . after over 35+ years as a professional artist, it seems that I need to add something new to my palette of tools and techniques, blogging.  It seems that if you want to be successful as an artist in 2010, you need to learn to blog.  So here I am.

From your perspective the big issue has to be exactly who this “I” is.  I mean I know, but you don’t and the point of this exercise is to introduce myself to you, the reader, and hopefully you will become interested and perhaps become a customer.

OK, I is, or more correctly, “I am”, Janet Elizabeth Flecher.  I am an almost 58 year old artist who has worked in a wide variety of media over her life.  But the past is the past and what happened long, long, ago in another time or place really is not relevant to the arts I am doing today.  So we are going to focus on the Jewelry Arts and drum making.  More about the drum making at a lter time.

Along with my life companion, Mary Lou, I own LizzieDesigns.  LizzieDesigns is a jewelry studio that works in a wide variety of mostly jewelry based (more on this later) art media.  We work in lapidary, silversmithing, wire wrapping, PMC, glass fusion, lampwork beading, wire weaving, chainmail, and any other medium we need to make our jewelry. We are not a production facility.  There are just the two of us, myself basically full time and Mary Lou working whenever she can find the time and/or energy.  Our work is pretty much one-offs or small production runs resulting in a handful of pieces.  However, the one-offs and small production runs have added up to a very full portfolio of finished pieces and cut stones over the last 6 years.

Although we have sold a few pieces on-line, most of our sales volume is either word-of-mouth or show sells.  We are located in a growing town on the western edge of the Mojave Desert known as Hesperia, California.  We like to say that we live in the city of Hysteria in the state of Confusion.  We currently do not have a showroom or open studio and we hope that this blog will help in getting the word out about our arts and hopefully finding new customers.

So that was a simple introduction.  Sometimes it is best to keep initial introductions as simple as possible.  The next step, or so I have been told, is to talk a little bit about my art and where my head is.  I think that will be the next post.  I think it best to keep this intro fairly short.  So to next time. . .

janet