ARGUABLY A LAKE SUPERIOR AGATE

I have very mixed feelings about offering this little gem for sale as it is arguably a Lake Superior Agate that I carved into a very sensual – perhaps even erotic looking heart. If you spend enough time collecting along the Mississippi River and on the more and more rarely exposed gravel bars, you will eventually find the elusive Lake Superior Agate, but rarely are they as large as this piece.

New Free-form Cabochons

Beth completed a really fine selection of precious and semiprecious gemstones yesterday. They are still on the dop sticks she uses to hold them while she shapes and polishes them. The diamond polishing wheels she uses to grind and finish them wet on her lapidary machine are also pictured.

Time to Get Wet!

Sometimes rocks we have collected on one of our field trips sit around in our yard for a year or more allowing the rain and sun to naturally clean them. However if they are big and really dirty, I pull out the pressure washer and get really wet. The majority of them I clean with a small jet nozzle simply attached to a hose but get even wetter since there is no long wand. To be honest, this time of the year getting wet is part of the fun. I turn the stones often and let the sun dry them in-between which helps break up trapped dirt. I repeat this process until the loose material is removed. Exceptional examples may require hand cleaning with probes and brushes. Beth and I like specimens in both their naturally found form and as in these examples completely cleaned of mineral stains which requires a few hours in a crock pot slowly heated with a mild oxalic acid. This acid bath is required to clean the iron oxide off select specimens like this druzy quartz we collected on the last Club trip to Missouri. You can clearly see the difference between those that were just cleaned with the hose and those that have had the iron oxide coating removed with acid.

Many rocks we collect end up in the garden or I use them as pots like the included example. Some we cut and polish. Others we make into jewelry.

Curious Conglomerate Hand Carved River Rock Heart Sculpture

I have always collected “curious rocks”. Conglomerates like the stone this heart is carved from were among the first things I picked up, usually out of creek beds. At the time I thought they were gravel that was used in some man-made product like asphalt or concrete that had broken, been thrown away, and then weathered into the curiously mixed odd shapes. Little did I imagine back then they were river or ocean gravel that many millions of years ago had settled within an iron oxide mud like limonite or hematite and were fused underground with great pressure for many millions of years only to resurface again usually in riverbed gravel or out of a gravel pit like this piece I carved into a heart.

This material is irrational to carve and even more difficult to polish. When I first suggested that I was going to use it for sculptures, other lapidary artist told me the stone was unworkable and would only ruin the tools or other material that was mixed with it while tumbling. This piece is an excellent example of that not being true. It is true that only a select few conglomerate carvings survive to completion. Perhaps it requires a certain aesthetic to fully appreciate such a carving, but I think this amazing example of what is possible speaks for itself. This is as difficult, rare, and odd as carving and polishing stone gets. Wonderful to contemplate and to hold as it oozes the energy geological forces invested in its creation. Every curious rock collector needs one.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/130050282/curious-conglomerate-hand-carved-river

Sunshine and Carved Quartz

Carved Hot Springs, Arkansas Quartz Crystal and Sunshine

I on U!

Three new cast paper sculptures with quartz crystals we collected each titled:

I on U.

New Angels

A few of Beth's new Wire Wrapped Tumbled Stone Angels!