stephen@rockntreasures.com

San Diego County Fair 2006

This year’s fair had a great beach theme. I tried to bring it into all of my displays this year. I had a lot of fun dreaming up how to display in a way that would represent the ocean. Wayland came to the fair and painted a beautiful mural on one of the fair buildings, it is awesome.

2006f
2006a
2006b

This is a turquoise necklace I call “Blue Heart”. It is made of silver, coral and Number 8 Mine Turquoise. I cut and polished the center pendant and set it is silver, I bought all of the beads that go with it. You can’t see it in the picture but the center of the pendant has a heart shape in the matrix.

I won the San Diego Lapidary Societies award for “Best Cabochon” for this piece.

2006e

These are my three cabochons with matching rough.

  • Andamooka Matrix Opal- Andamooka, Australia
  • Regency Rose Plume Agate- Graveyard Point, Oregon
  • Eudylite- Kola Peninsula, Russia
2006d

These are my five mineral specimens that I entered:

  • Smoky Quartz on Petrified Wood - Holbrook, Arizona
  • RubelliteTourmaline - Pala, California
  • Calcite- Wenshan, Yunnan Province,China
  • Fluorite- Xianghua, Hunan Province, China
  • Chrysocolla- Star of Congo Mine, Congo, D.R.

I won the Cecil Waterhouse award and the San Diego County Gem and Mineral Society Award for this collection.

2006c

This won the El Cajon Valley Gem and Mineral Societies award for this entry.!

This is a necklace that I made from silver art clay. It is called “Black Widow” and is a black widow with a ruby c.z. in it’s belly. I dedicated this entry to one of my teachers and dear friends, Jon Rose. Jon was the first person who taught me jewelry and lapidary and I made this piece in a class he taught. Jon passed away this year and I miss him a lot. I put a cannon on the plaque because Jon loved to sail as a pirate and explosives expert under the alias “Juan de la Kaboom”. I wanted the display to look like a pirates chest spilling over with treasure. Yo ho ho, it got a blue ribbon.

2006g 2006h

The Horn of Versailles

Last but not least of my entries is the entry that I am most proud of. It is the best work I have ever done. I spent about 200 hours making this horn entirely by hand. I started with a cow’s horn and cleaned it out and polished it. Then I worked with brass, silver, copper and turquoise to create my design. I won Best in Show and the Jon Rose Memorial Award for Creativity in Lapidary. I think this award means the most to me because of how much Jon has meant to me, I am going to keep working hard and I hope that I will do work that will have made Jon proud.

I also have to say a HUGE thanks to Kim Hutsell who spent so many hours in his workshop reaching me all of the skills that I needed to have to make this horn. I have to say I have had the best mentors anyone could hope for.

2006i

This is a picture of me with my friends after the awards ceremony. There were 5 of us who won special awards for our gem and mineral entries.