Magnificant Malachite!

Mind Mending Material

I’ve always had a strong attraction to Malachite.  

Especially when its cut horizontally to show off tree ring like orbs

 It’s one of the stones that I always have on my desk.    It’s a soothing stone for me.   Especially when it’s a down day,  I like to relieve the stress by polishing or cutting malachite.

 

Malachite in my ebay store RadiantRocksCT

 I especially like the feeling I get of peace and serenity when working with it.     When mixed with Azurite  it helps me be happy and reminds me of one of my favorite quotes:

“Don’t cry because it’s over.

Smile because it happened.“

Dr Seuss (@www.brainyquote.com)

That’s what I did after I lost my cat friend, Terrapin. 

  A constant and crazy companion in my rock world.   Crazy lace in RadiantRocksCT store

Inspiration is a gift

     Inspiration is a gift.    “Stimulation for the human mind to creative thought or to the making of art”.   Hopefully everyone has been inspired by someone in their lives.     My cousin, Mia Tegner,  was the one who inspired me to study marine ecology.   I loved working on discovering how eco-systems tied together.  It’s amazing how important it is to understand how the world is interconnected.  Bees pollinate  a lot of our food sources and yet we took a long time to figure out that the poisons we were using to protect the same crops was also killing the bees, which was kind of defeating the whole “circle of life”.    This came to back into my mind a few days ago watching the Lion King production in Boston.   The inspirational performers reminded me that the Circle of Life was what always stimulated me to study ecology.

Red Crazy lace cabochon details

      At the time I thought I was poor, never realizing that by leaving this field, and moving into the grinding pursuit of money, that I was moving away from the thing I wanted to do most in life.   It was almost 40 years later before I got inspired again.   Rocks and jewelry making were my new passion.   Rocks provide their own beauty.  My creative part was  to figure out the best way to expose the beauty to the world.  When it came to creating designs and setting the stones in silver I don’t consider myself an artist but I have found that when I work on creating a setting time just evaporates.

My inspiration comes from artists that could create amazing beauty with simple timeless lines like these earrings.

            I find inspiration, beauty and peace in working with rocks and jewelry.  The times in my life that I can devote to that work seem to simply relax and calm me.

            I hope you all find someone who inspires you to do the things you love the most!

Cabin Fever, in the city ? Colors of Spring!

As I was sitting cropping the lastest round of rock pictures from the Brazilian shipment.  Beautiful Cathedral Geodes and Carizinho Agate plates ( displays in my ebay store).   The birds outside my third floor office were swirling around outside in the neighbors oak tree. Imagine my surprise  to look up and catch this image out of the corner of my eye.    I have no idea what kind of hawk it was but it was a first for me out of this window!

            

It's been a long winter for us here in south eastern Connecticut.  Admittedly it doesn't compare to that of any of my rock friends in the colder northern regions of the states but for us it was the most snowfall on record.   Seems like the ice and snow was everywhere.  Quite a few collapsed roofs around here.  My biggest problems were having to get into rock storage areas that were snowed and iced in.  I ended up loading several barrels of Brazilian material from one barrel to another to get it across the last few yards of iced up driveway.

The cats are equally stir crazy.  The brave ones still go out but at least a couple have been permanent house cats for the winter.  The newest one Terrapin, ( that i thought was named for a turtle?  turns out to have been named for Terrapin Station by the Grateful Dead, go figure!) is my latest rock cat!   Prowling about here on the latest shipment of Pietersite from Namibia.  They are all a great help when i'm trying to type and insert new postings to ebay especially when they lay on the keyboard. 

After the last storm ( 8 hours of rain) it looks like we are moving towards the end of Winter.    Ahh the joy's of working out in the carriage house, slabbing, drilling and polishing without having to come inside to treat for frostbite!   Can't wait to cut some more of this beautiful Chrysocolla Malachite from Arizona.  It's time to get your favorite rock slabs( or pick one up online )out and cut some bright cabs to welcome the coming of Spring.  Take Care!

Best Christmas in years

Times are tough financially all over the country so this year we decided to just make stuff for the kids for Christmas.  Margaret made cookbooks, pies and sushi (yes the kids have a wide range of tastes).  Naturally I felt rocks would be the perfect gift for Christmas.  Just as true to form Marg's stuff is all done and delivered and I'm still working. 

You have to understand that I'm the sous-chef and principle clean up staff at our house.  This means that if someone (guess who) is cooking a mass production run of pies, sushi, the traditional ten appetizers for Christmas evening and dinner for Christmas Day then my time becomes booked too! 

  

 I have some beautiful Madagascar Ocean Jasper that I've been aching to try for cabochons.  The problem is which piece do I cut !  Well as you've probably guessed I haven't decided.

But I was very happy to hear that Margaret felt this was the best Christmas we have had in years. 

So relax, enjoy, and let the warmth of your home bring peace to your heart.

Happy New Year

raul

 

Radiant Rocks Shows hope for the economy?

 

Boulder Opal wrapped in Silver



Did the December Craft fair show over at our church yesterday.  My friend Kristen from K.M. Brown Studio http://www.etsy.com/shop/kmbrownstudio brought her beautiful earrings and some very nice Swarovski crystal Christmas tree ornaments.  I brought some of Jon's wire wrapped pendants, some silver work, geodes, bookends, candles, nightlights and tumbled rock. 

We had a large crew today.  Mom-in-law aka Mom and her next door neighbor Rita did the first shift (while Margaret and I sang in the choir).   Then I manned the table with Rita while the grandson sang in the kids choir in the next service.  And finally Marg, Kristen and I closed out the day.  I was nervous about leaving the two septuagenarians alone but they did quite well.   My guess is that between the two of them they know half of the town.

Good crowds came through before and after the church services but the economics of today were still evident.  The nice couple selling cheese and jam next to us did a booming business all day.  The habanero jam went especially well on the hot dogs!  After the food tables everything else was a distant second.

Over at our tables, while the jewelry was frequently admired,  the big sellers were the geodes, tumble, night lights and book ends. 

It was interesting to watch the differences in gender as the kids hit the table.  You could see the eyes of the boys swivel instantly to the geodes and polished small rocks.  The girls would admire them but they ended up buying the night lights.  The girls all had wallets with neat flat bills and the boys in general had their money clutched tightly in a clump.   And the most consistant mom comment about their boys was "I'll find these (tumbled stones) in the dryer!"

Last year had taught us that the boys desperately wanted to spend there allowance on rocks so we priced the smaller pieces all down to the point where they could afford them.  I was happy it worked!

A hope for Radiant Rocks  is to radiate a passion for rocks and working with semi-precious stones as far as possible.  I think  that the answer I so desperately wanted to give one parent (who said to his boy "What are you going to do with that?" )  was:


 "Think about how to create a life long desire to learn, create and persue something with passion in your children." 

If we can do that a lot of other problems they face will solve themselves!

Perusing Pietersite

I've been thinking about Pietersite quite a bit these last few days.   A new customer in Atlanta found me on eBay and we spent several days going back and forth about the joys of working with this beautiful chatoyant material.   This dark and light blue and gold piece is flowing through quartz.  It's hard to describe how vivid these colors are. 

As we grind steadily into winter, working with this breciated tiger eye brings out my energy when the fire jumps out of the cabochon on the polishing wheels.  Bright contrasts, like a winter evening when the sun is on the trees.