Tucson Gem Show 2015, Part VI

I bought a few less gems this year, because part of my budget was dedicated to buying gemstone slabs for my own cab cutting purposes. I'd taken a short class on cutting cabochons, and talked with a few gem cutters before heading to Tucson to see what was what. The one thing I heard consistently was, "Tucson is by far the best place to buy slabs". So I didn't want to miss the opportunity!

And oh boy...it opened up my eyes to a whole new way of looking at gems, and trying to figure out how I would be able to "get the lion out of the marble". It's one thing to look at something like this:

source

And think,"I know what to I want to do with that"...it's quite another to look at THIS:

and figure out exactly how I'm going to get some interesting cabs out of it. But I'm game...so I brought home about fifteen small, inexpensive slabs to play with. This one was my "spendy" slab, probably for later on when I have more practice under my belt. But in a week or so, I go back to learn more cutting, so I guess I'll see what happens with it all. :)

Another view, to give you an idea of thickness. I'm really quite excited about this aspect of playing with gems, and while I don't think I'll ever want to cut all of my own gems, I think I'd like to have a few specialty items that I "made"the gem as well as the metalwork. Right now that road's wide open...who knows where I'll be with this new direction by the time *next* year's gem show comes around??

Tucson Gem Show, Part IV

It seems like no matter what time of year it is, I'm eagerly anticipating the Tucson show. And right between the end of December and the end of January, I'm *really* eagerly anticipating it. Like bouncing-off-the-walls anticipating. I really don't buy gems online very often, because I want to see and feel and know what I'm getting. There's a lot you just can't tell from photos. So every year, this is the single best opportunity to find interesting, unusual, and gorgeous gems that help determine my design directions.

This year, I found a few new / old favorites, such as these fabulous dendrite opals:

They are always so wonderful. I buy some smaller ones from a local gem cutter, but for the big, impactful gems I buy only in Tucson. No one else cuts 'em like this. :)

And as much as I love shopping for my favorites, I enjoy the thrill of the hunt for new and interesting gems. Below are a few photos of what caught my eye this year:

Azurite malachite. The gems above fascinated me with their interesting patterns and coloration. They're less spendy (especially in this somewhat larger size) than the azurite / malachite that doesn't contain the brown host rock, but I really loved the color combinations. I think I ended up with about ten or twelve cabs.

And then I picked up a few - only a few - of this gem without the host boulder:

Also stunningly beautiful. They're typically priced a lot higher than I'd like - and you can see how much cleaner the corners are on these; better quality cutting (though not always easier to set!). I pick up a few at random times when I find shapes / patterns / colors I like, figuring that eventually I'll have enough to do something really fun with them. I'm okay with a bit of hoarding. :)

Some lodelites shown above. From Brazil. I don't see lodelite, or buy it, very often...but it's fascinating. It's a type of quartz, with inclusions. And it's cut so that you get an almost 3-D effect looking down into the gem. But to get that 3-D effect means it typically has a very high dome. And they're not all polished smooth on the bottom, where the inclusions are. So setting might be a bit of a challenge, not that I mind. :)  And this brings my stash of lodelites to a grand total of three. :)

Oregon blue opal. This has a lot of matrix (the brown and white) in it, but I found it more interesting this way. The plain blue reminded me a lot of chalcedony, which I don't really use much...but I like  the contrast of the milky-sky blue with the earthy browns. And who knew that Oregon produced opals??

In my next post, I'll share some other unusual / special gems, and the beauties that didn't make it into the suitcase this year, for one reason or another. A girl's got to leave a bit for the rest of the jewelers. *wink*

Tucson Gem Show 2015, Part III

In my last post, I shared a little about struggling to find the "right" gems - right heights, right quality, right price. Today I'll share some gems that seemed abundantly available for me this year...the Peruvian opals.

Last year I'd bought a big ol' bunch of pendant-sized gems, and a few pairs for earrings. As it turned out, the pendants moved much more slowly than the earrings. By the end of the year, I was nearly sold out of earring gems. So this year I was on a big mission for earring pairs, and I hit a motherlode.

The photo above is just a random sampling of my haul. Most of the gems not shown are smaller, but all of these gorgeous beauties will make stellar earrings. And they're not heavy, thick cuts. And they're LOVELY. I love my turquoise, but seeing a whole bunch of Peruvians together makes me really, really happy. :)

Since I still had a few pendant gems left, I told myself I could only buy what really, truly made my heart sing. I try to do that anyway - choosing what I consider only "the best" makes it easier to cull through the thousands of gems I view at the shows - but this year I was super-picky about non-earring-sized gems.

I did find these:

which I adore for their translucency (though I usually prefer more opaque color) and their organic shapes. And these:

which hit me right in the gut. I knew they were definitely worth a little splurge. :)

Nearly all the Larimar in yesterday's post, and all of the Peruvian opals from today's post come from the same gem dealer. In years past. they've had displays at three locations in the Tucson Gem show; this year they consolidated to just one. Which made things a little easier and a little more difficult, because I went out of my way to one specific show just to see them, and spent the previously mentioned three hours looking through tons and tons of gems. It's a huge time-suck, because there are so many other places I need to get to - but it's utterly worth it.

I also found just a *few* pairs of boulder turquoise for earrings. The mine for these closed several years ago, and all the rough has been cut up, so new stock in these patterns are nonexistent. But in digging through the bins, I did come across these:

they were hidden away at the bottom of a bin. And now they're safely here in the studio.  :)

Tucson Gem Show 2015, Part II

The trickiest things about using one of a kind gems in your jewelry designs, is that sometimes you can really find what you need...ahem, *want*, easily and at the right price, like yesterday's turquoise...and sometimes you can't. This year, a few of my "regular" buys were harder to come by.

Larimar,for example, can be tricky to find. Last year the price skyrocketed and I really had to do some hunting to find what I needed. I had similar problems this year; the prices were better BUT the gems were cut really, really thick, which I don't like. A thicker cut usually means a few things:

- a sloppier or less experienced cutter

- a more expensive purchase (and not in a good way) Thicker cabs mean that I pay more for the raw material weight, then I have to use more metal to bezel the gems, which means my customers also will pay more overall. Which I don't like, which is why I look for thinner cabochons. :)

- a lesser quality gem - sometimes it seems like poor quality is "made up for " by cutting thicker gems. But I don't want "more gem, less quality" I'd rather have better quality material.

These in the photo are nice and "svelte"and the corners are well done. I am finding the patterns in the new gems coming out of the Caribbean so much more interesting than some of the earlier material that was simply straight-up blue. These patterns are fabulous!

I also found it hard to find the "right" matched pairs of Larimar for earrings. Either there simply weren't any available, or they were way too spendy for my plans. Or too thick - which, in addition to the issues I mentioned above, often means that the gems will be far too heavy for comfortable earrings. I get a lot of comments about how my earrings are comfortable to wear, and I take pride in making that part of my design prioritites. So thick gems for earrings are really just not an option.

Actually, this year I ended up making some of my own matched pairs, out of some huge bins of random gems. I sorted through entire bins to find cuts and color patterns that matched up:

I spent three hours at one dealer's location. For an eight hour shopping day (minus travel time), that's a chunk. But between the Larimar and the Peruvian opals I'll show you later, all thatt time did not go unrewarded. :)

Tucson Gem Show 2015, Part I

Time for the annual review of the Tucson Gem show, the largest show in the world for showing, selling, and buying gems. It's a must-do if you love colored gems. The Tucson "show" is actually about 40 or so separate shows, scattered around Tucson over a period of two weeks. Some require a business license, some are open to the public.

And no gem show trip is ever free of some sort of surprise, of course. This year there was a lot of rain - for the desert in winter, a LOT of rain - during the early days of the show. Which made most of the ground look like this:

Most of the time, shopping Tucson is dusty. Not this year! Lots of ankle-deep mud puddles to navigate. Fortunately I'd brought along a pair of workhorse boots, which sufficed until the mud dried up a bit.

My first stop was where I usually like to first shop: the Royston Turquoise booth. Oh, there are others (though not many), but this booth is special. :)  The boys always have many, many lovely gems, but they *do* sell out sometimes, so I like to get there as early as possible. This year I was unable to travel early enough to get to them when the show opened, so I got there late on the first day. And they were already (on the first day! They had two weeks left!) very low on larger sized gems, which I use for pendants.

I did find these:

Hello, fabulousness! I didn't get anything on the really large side, like last year, but I found a decent variety. The two matched pairs on the bottom are meant for earrings, but the pairs on the left I'm going to break up into pendants, and the pairs on the right I think I'm going to hold onto until I can find a really cool centerpiece to go with them. Sometimes gems just get put away for a while until the right time comes along.:)

While I didn't have a huge choice of pendants...I hit the jackpot with earrings this year:

Oh, what grand fun I will have making earings with these! I love finding unusual patterns and shapes in my gems, and these are all wonderful.

I'm taking photos and uploading them here all week, so stay tuned...there are a lot more lovelies to share. :)

Tucson Gem Show 2014

Every year, I make the pilgrimage to Mecca - that is, the Mecca for gem hounds, AKA the Tucson Gem Show. And every year, something happens. One year the rental car was accidentally booked in Phoenix - 90 minutes north - when I was in Tucson. I went from rental car counter to rental car counter, looking for car. Eventually one was found, but as you can guess, not for a reasonable price. And it was the tiniest car...

Then three years ago, this happened. That was a rough start...

So this year I arrived in Phoenix, got my rental, and prepared to drive to Tucson. Only it didn't quite work out that way, and I ended up staying in Phoenix overnight. I'll skip the details, but what that meant was getting up super early to drive down to Tucson on Wednesday morning. Which worked out fine, except I crashed quite early that night...super-early to rise, super-early to bed, I guess. :)

Three days of frenzied shopping later, my gorgeous gems and I headed back to Phoenix, and enjoyed visiting with my best friend, lunch with my mother, and a grand bit of relaxation in the desert sun. All was well until Sunday night, when I started hearing rumblings about the WEATHER in Atlanta. More technically, the predicted weather...which sounded eerily (and ominously) similar to this scenario. Having had enough of that mess, I kept a close watch in the weather, and on Monday, I called the airline. My flight was originally leaving on a Tuesday, which would put me right in the middle of the most recently predicted snow and ice. The airline told me that they were allowing passengers to change their reservations at no charge, so I asked about a Thursday flight. The agent told me there was one with just a handful of seats, so I asked him to put me on it. 

So. Two more days in Phoenix...not a bad deal, right? Not really...except that I needed to get back to work. When I'm not working, no work gets done, and I'm behind already for my creative goals for this year. And I was leaving again on the 18th for another trip...the timing was just not the best, but when is it really? I settled in and managed to suck up all the lovely Arizona sunshine, and enjoyed the sunsets every evening:

They're not as grandly colorful as they are in summertime, but I still love to see them. There's nothing like a Western sunset, no matter what time of year. :)

Anyhoo, Thursday came and my traveling home was STILL iffy. I'd called the airline again the day before, because the storm actually came in later than predicted, and it seemed like they still might not be landing planes in Atlanta. After a 40-minute hold, the airline rep told me that my best bet was to stay on my direct flight for Thursday and hope it didn't get canceled (!). Any other flights would involve layovers and red-eyes. So I kept my flight and on Thursday, I made it home, tired but relieved. 

Of course, I did manage some snaps while I was busily shopping for gems. There is much craziness to behold at the Gem Show each year; much loveliness too. And things that just boggle the mind. Here are just a few:

This is a detail of carving on stone. Amazing, amazing workmanship:

That's the saddle on the horse, above. And the detail of the mane:

 And this elephant:

All of the details you see here are carved into the stone. I cannot imagine the hours of work on just that one piece.

The vase next to the elephant is about three feet taller than I am! Yikes!

These are stone lights. What a lovely glow! If I didn't have to ship 'em home, I'd have at least one in my house. :) One of the days while I was in Phoenix, my girlfriend and I went out to downtown Scottsdale (big shopping destination, lots of fine art galleries). And we saw some of these lights in a gallery there...with a hefty price tag....and I showed her this photo and told her to come down to the gem show with me if she wanted one. I don't know the price difference, but I suspect it would be massively less expensive. And you know, they have plenty:

They're in a huge part of one of the temporary tent, and there were hundreds of them for sale...

Part of the reason you NEED several days to shop the gem show is because there are a lot of other folks trying to do the same thing. This doesn't look like a lot, but it's only part of the line for only one of the shows...waiting for the doors to open.

I'm waiting, too.  :)  This is the opening of the show where I often find most of my gems for the year. This was on the morning of my second day of shopping, and I spent more on that day than on the other two days combined. 

Rows and rows and ROWS of gems:

And this is just part of one gem seller's area. They're based in Massachusetts and I can't imagine the logistics of getting it all across the country. Here's a closer shot of what's on the tables:

A bit daunting for the novice. It's easier (though still time-consuming) if you know what you want, know what you can / want to pay for it, and know who's selling it. I think I only bought from twelve vendors this year...but I knew I was going to see most of them before I went. Two or three others were lucky finds.  :) 

This is behind the checkout area of the same gem dealer...girls get to sleep in a hotel room, but guys take turns in the pup tent. Gotta make sure the inventory is safe. And on those super-cold years?? Hopefully they bring extra blankets!

My friend's boys are now five and almost-two, and she has a little more free time in the mornings now since they go part-time to school. So she's started hiking, and I went on three hikes while I was there. I used to hike all the time when I lived in Phoenix and I miss it terribly. Nothing like being up IN my mountains. It's a good start to any day  :)

And finally, an obligatory shot of The Compound's newest denizen:

Chip is a retired herding dog who has come to The Compound (I call it that because my friend has a lot of land, and has variously shared it with four dogs (right now there are three), three cats, two horses, and a number of both saltwater and freshwater fish. And her oldest son loves reptiles, especially snakes, so there will probably be some of those in-house in the future). Anyway, Chip now resides at the compound, so he can rest and get lots (and lots and lots) of lovin'. He loves to be loved, and he's very gentle, which is great for two little ones. And for happy visitors who don't have doggies at home. :)

So the 2014 Tucson shopping trip comes to an end...a little later than expected. But the good news is that I bought lots and lots of gorgeous gems to set this year. I'm really excited to share them with you and am currently taking photos like a madwoman. Look for them shortly in my next few blog posts...