Tucson Gem Show, Part IV: The Turquoise!

I learned my lesson last year, having randomly stumbled across one small booth selling beautiful examples of Royston turquoise. I bought a few, and sold all but one (thank you, my awesome customers!!). The response to them was phenomenal, which means that I get to buy more!

This year, I went straight to that same booth when the show opened, and I literally fought my way through the crowds to get some of these goodies. The booth was packed with other people who wanted the same thing I did, and getting your toes stepped on or your side elbowed is sometimes part of the gem buying experience. But trust me when I say it was totally worth it. :)

For those who don't know, Royston turquoise comes from Nevada. It's a lovely and prized type of turquoise with stunning color and matrix. But the type of Royston turquoise I REALLY love is known as boulder, or ribbon turquoise. The turquoise gem is not completely cut out of the host rock, or boulder (hence, boulder turquoise), and the lovely blue color winds through the boulder, often resembling a ribbon. Like these:

they give a flash of the blue, contained within a lovely golden brown host rock (sometimes the host rock is a bit paler, as in the center earring pair shown above). Unusual, lovely, and yes...a bit spendy. But sooo worth it. 

These are all earring pairs. I didn't have as much luck finding pendant gemstones this year, but I did stock up on earring stones as much as I could. That doesn't mean that I have a lot, because these aren't easy to find - I only saw Royston / boulder turquoise at two gem vendors this year - but I grabbed what I could.

Of course, I didn't forgo pendant-sized gems entirely:

These all have the lighter host rock, but will still make lovely pendants. The upside-down teardrop shape is one of my favorites to work with.

I also found these three ovals, and....

this bad boy. It's BIG. And beautiful. And it's going to make a stunning pendant. :) 

But let me share my OTHER great find:

Natural Kingman turquoise, from Arizona. One of my favorites of the American turquoises. The Kimgman mine is still in operation, but only for copper mining; turquoise is no longer mined there. So any Kingman gems that come on the market are from old stock, in limited amounts. They're also often not in my budget. But this year, the stars aligned and I found a few that I had to bring home. Just look at those two beauties! The coloring and matrix remind me of some of the prettiest Peruvian opals that I've shared with you....only these are even better in some ways. :) 

And for the first time ever, I found earring pairs!

Just a sampling of the 12 pairs I found. All different, all stunning. And all American.  :)

I have one more unusual gem to share with you. And then it's time to get on to turning these gorgeous goodies into jewelry! 

Tucson 2013: Part III

One more post of fabulous new finds...then back to some jewelry photos next week.  :)

Freeform crazy lace agate from Guadalajara, Mexico. Remember when I posted here about wanting to challenge myself with setting more irregular stones? I found some beauties! They happen to *all* be crazy lace agate, but they're all strikingly different and beautiful. I bought directly from the cutter (this actually happened several times this year) and it was a fantastic experience.

Here's another:

A very different cut! I'm thinking of setting it just the way it's photographed - maybe with only a bezel on the top of the stone so you can see the full effect of the crystals on the bottom. Or these might be the stones that finally push me into doing some sort of prong setting. They're just as lovely on both sides and I want to expose as much of the stone as possible.

My personal favorite of the ten or so I purchased:

It's hard to see here but there's a line of open crystals across the top of this stone. And the coloring is just lovely. Here's a closer shot with the crystals on the bottom so you can see better:

That whole dark gray area on the bottom is a crystal bed. 

I have collected crazy lace agate in a small way for several years, and like many stones, it's become harder and harder to find. It comes only from Guadalajara, and the pieces I'm seeing now often don't have the lovely color that I've seen in the past. Many are simply gray and white, which is also pretty, but I love the rich colors. So coming across these was a happy surprise.

I mentioned that I bought these directly from the stone cutter. And that was wonderful.  I was fortunate enough to have that experience three different times while shopping the gem show this year. One booth was outside and had the cutting machine going in the back (the couple's son was cutting) while I browsed. These folks were great - I bought my first piece of variscite from them - and some other choice stones - and learned so much from their knowledge and experience. Then I bought these funky agate pieces from the cutter, who was so easy to work with. And the Royston pieces I posted previously were directly from the family who cuts the stones and sells them. There were two generations of cowboy cutters there (hats, big belt buckles, and boots included) and we had a blast.  :)

In the past, I have purchased from foreign dealers who manage to act like my paltry $500 (or more) purchase is barely worth their time (and I put paltry in italics because, hey! for most people, $500 is a chunk of money. I realize that for some of these dealers it's a tiny amount, but I still find it rude to treat your customers like they're not worth your time - no matter what amount they're spending). I've spent in the four figures with certain stone dealers and they just act like it's an annoyance to weigh the stones, give me a total, or write a receipt. This is not true of all foreign dealers, of course, but some of them make me feel a little dirty for doing business with them.

This year, it was such a pleasure to at least occasionally purchase from American dealers who took the time to share their knowledge with me, and to enjoy the interaction with someone who loves stones as much as they do. American-made is more expensive, no doubt about it. But it's really nice to support others who are working to create the best product they can, and to know who's doing the work and how it's being done. A very welcome bonus to my shopping this year.  :)
   

Tucson 2013: Part II

As promised, today I'm sharing some of the other goodies from the most recent shopping trip:

Turquoise...gorgeous turquoise. I found the above, and these:

I LOVE the striking blue color against the dark host rock. They're so different from the turquoise I usually see and buy. But don't worry, turquoise lovers, I bought a LOT of other turquoise too:

Though I bought quite a bit of the traditionally blue turquoise, I found myself gravitating to greens as well. I love the bold bright blues, but these subtle greens really caught my eye. 

This is how a lot of the stones are sold - taped or glued to cardboard. Which is fine...unless you don't want ALL the stones on each piece of cardboard. Then you have to either purchase them all anyway, or ask the seller to allow you to cut out the stones you want...sometimes they're nice about it and sometimes they're not. In this grouping, I loved them all and am thinking of making a big necklace with them, so I bought the whole card. Same for the stones below:

I had a hard time finding good earring stones this year - a lot of them were cut weirdly. I wish I could explain it better, but they just were off and I knew it would take extra work on my part to make them hang right. So I put tons of not-good-enough stones back into the bins and didn't bring home as many as I'd like. But these above are all so wonderfully matched, and I like the coloring of each one, so they came home with me. I am thinking the ones third from the right will be great with the first pendant posted above.  :)

I bought a lot more turquoise...a LOT more. I think I should be stocked up for a while now...

And while we're looking at turquoise, check out THESE beauties:

Royston / ribbon / boulder turquoise. Incredibly hard to find. And often very pricey when you do find it. This is turquoise that is not cut out of the host rock (the boulder). Instead, the stone cutter plans his or her cutting so that the "ribbon" of turquoise is the highlight. Thus the term "ribbon turquoise". Also known as boulder turquoise and Royston turquoise because most of this type of turquoise comes from the Royston mine in Nevada.

I liked the thought of them as earrings...but:

I think they may be even better as pendants.  :)

Another gorgeous pair. These may be the prettiest of all the ones I found.

A slightly more subtle pair. I should point out that though I only found Royston / boulder turquoise at three stone sellers in all of Tucson. Now, I can't possibly go to every show that takes place, but I went to six or seven shows, with hundreds or thousands of sellers. This stuff just isn't easy to come by. And it's definitely more expensive than most of the other turquoise I buy.

But they're so gorgeous...and you get what you pay for. These may have to be set into some very special pieces...

More goodies in the next post, and then back to business as usual.  :)

Tucson 2013 : Part I

The only quick snap I got of my beloved mountains....from the JOGS show parking lot. There just wasn't any time for photos...

I'm just home from a very whirlwind trip to Tucson last week! My shortest trip ever - just 2.5 days. And while you may think that shopping for gemstones is easily done in that amount of time, it really isn't. And why not?

- All the people. Though Tucson show visitor numbers haven't returned to pre-recession levels (no official data, just my impressions from a decade of attending), there are still a LOT of people shopping. And many of them want what YOU want. So you wait in line...in fact, you wait in many lines (the parking line, the shuttle line, the opening line, the line at the stone dealer's booth, etc.). And all that line-waiting takes up precious minutes of time.

- All the locations. "The Tucson Gem Show" is actually comprised of about 40 shows, spread over two weeks. Some shows are open for the whole two weeks, some a week, some for just a few days. So planning to shop from certain dealers (who may or may not all be at the same show, or in the same location) is tricky. And you can drive from show location to show location, but don't forget all the other people who are doing the same. Parking can be difficult (and expensive - $10 to park all day might be reasonable...but sometimes you're going to three shows in a day. Now we're talking $30 extra to park). Shuttle buses are available, but you'll be waiting in line...again...and they're not always the fastest way to get to another show. Especially once it's after 3 p.m. and rush hour traffic starts.

- All the options. Every year I visit Tucson with a very specific list of items. And every year it's difficult to find the right items, at the right price. Millions of stones. Thousands of sellers. In different locations throughout Tucson. It's madness. By the end of the day, your eyes are glazed over and you can barely stand to look at another stone, no matter how rare / beautiful / perfect-for-you it may be. And what you're looking for might not be there this year. Or it might not be there in the quality / price you want. So you'd better have a Plan B (or think quickly on the fly) to figure out what else to buy. These are natural stones, and many of them only occur in one area of the world (or a few areas). So sometimes there just isn't any supply that year...sometimes there's no supply at all because there's none left.  :(

So yeah, it's crazy. But it's *so* exciting when you find something that speaks to you (and fits your budget)! I"m a rock lover from a very young age, and being around all those stones and gems and rocks is exhilarating. And I am exceptionally choosy about the stones I purchase and use in my designs, so for me, there's no substitute for hand selecting my choices each year.

Let me get you to the money shots.  :)

Red creek jasper. I'll do a full "Natural Wonders" post on it in the future, but it's a fairly new stone to the gem market and it's gorgeous. These are matched up (pretty well; the stone never looks the same twice) for earrings.

I bought several pendant-sized stones. The one on the left is new and the one on the right is from last year. I keep talking about going bigger with my designs and these stones are going to force that to happen.  :)

I love the shape of these. And while I try to not purchase stones with sharp corners - they're more difficult to bezel and set - I could not resist these.

Eudialyte (yoo-die-ah-lite). Another stone that needs a Natural Wonders post. For now I'll tell you that it's fairly rare. And fairly expensive. I have a hard time finding it and when I do, it's usually a good bit out of budget. This year I came home with three small pieces, and consider that lucky. Love the funky shape of the piece above...

A very thin cab, but the gorgeous garnet-y red is what sold me.

Similar to the one above it, but thicker and with a deeper color saturation.

I'll share even more amazing goodies in the next post.  :)

Write What You Know...Design What You Know?

Aspiring writers are often told to "write what you know". This lends authenticity to the writing. It seems pretty straightforward and makes sense. 

But does this translate to other creative endeavors?


It seems that one of the buzzwords these days is authenticity, especially related to business. Google authenticity+marketing to spend your day reading hundreds of articles about it. I read two books recently, Be Your Own Brand and Everyone Communicates, Few Connect. The overwhelming message I took away from both was to be your authentic self, both in personal interactions and in branding your company.

They started me thinking about what I, personally bring to the table in my designs. What makes my work mine? What makes it different from any other jewelry artist's? For a while, I thought...nothing. And for a while there probably was nothing. I'd been told my creations looked a lot like what was being made by many other students at the Spruill Center. I'd been told they looked like other artisans' work. Probably all true. But over time, I think they are becoming more individual and recognizable. 

Why? Because of my authentic self. Some aspects of it are:

- I was born in the late 1960's and my formative years were in the early- to mid-seventies. There was a lot of spillover from the mid-century mod look, and design and this applied to furniture, jewelry, clothing - clean lines. No unnecessary fussiness. Bold color.

Hm. What do I aspire to in EVERY jewelry design? Or in my own home and wardrobe?  :)

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I could easily live here.  :)

Though born in New York state, I spent twenty-five years in Arizona. Spare landscapes. Adobe-style houses (again, no unnecessary fussiness). Ranch homes. Surrounded by arid, ragged-edged mountains (very unlike the lush hillsides of my current state).

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NOT the green countryside where I now live. This is the land of my childhood!
 
Well. I love making jaggedy, asymmetrical shapes that remind me of the mountains. I use embellishments sparingly in my creations.

I like a lot of open space in my life. And I like a lot of open space in my jewelry. I feel no need to cover every bit of metal with extras and adornments. I don't usually put two design elements right next to each other - I leave a little room. Maybe because I grew up with a vast amount of space? Arizona in the 1970s and into the 1980s was a lot of wide open land. I could drive ten miles from my house and be in the middle of the desert, seeing a million stars in the utterly dark sky and gazing off for into the distance for miles and miles.

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That's Phoenix in the foreground. But it's the mountains in the background that I'm looking at.  :)


What do you think? Do we subconsciously (or deliberately) design what we know?