Anyhow, here are some new pretties!    Chinese Writing Rock (aka Calligraphy stone or porphyrhytic  granite)

 

and this is some REALLY nice Parrot WIng Jasper (silicated Chrysocolla, cuprite, malachite, etc.) from Mexico.   It's from old stock that was mined out in the 1960's and it's hard to get material of this quality and color....

and then there's some Gaspeite in ironstone matrix from Australia....

and finally a beautiful Australian opal laminated to a background-framing piece of gemstone jet, sort of a fabulous centerpiece for Mourning jewelry.   More on my jet mourning jewelry to come in another thread deadicated to that (pun!) 

 

 

 That's all for now!

 

Really cool pendants, where do you get the rocks? Aww, I was in Portland 2 weeks ago and I was not aware of fairs or anything like that,

I'm looking forward to seeing the new "mourning" thread and I wonder what does it have to do with mourning!

 Thanks for sharing
 

The opals are gorgeous!  Are you mining and/or cutting your own rocks?  They are all beautiful and I am curious to see your Mourning Jewelry, being a vintage jewelry buff.  Hurry and show!!

 Hi Folks! 

 Homegirl, I certainly DO CUT my own rocks, but I don't mine any of the material.   My studio is a United Nations of minerals with stuff from all over the world (except Antartica, and I'm working on that!).   There's no way I could go to Australia, Siberia, S. Africa, Utah, Ontario, etc. etc. to get all my rocks.   I've been collecting and cutting for 31+ years (I'm just turned 41!) and working as a full time Lapidary Artist for 15+ years.   Mostly custom cut focal beads-pendants for the past   10.

Thanks for the feedback and don't worry, the mourning jewelry thread will be up soon.  I still gotta get my old studio cleaned out, my new studio set up, and get back into production.  I've had SOOOO much interest in the mourning beads but it's a very intense thing for me to do and deal with spiritually.  Going into the "blackness" that is jet and rendering into ornament to help one deal with grief is a heavy task.   I initially started doing them to help me deal with my grief over losing so many friends to HIV-AIDS and to help other friends and folks in my community to deal with their own grief over whatever.  It's a big task and I approach it with trepidation but strong and loving intentions.   More on that later.

 For NOW....   I got a load of metal mineral ores for my birthday last month and it's been really fun to cut.   I love working with metal mineral ores because the high grade ores show us where our metals come from.  They're also rare and I really don't know ANYONE who is making beads or pendants out of them!

 This is a really nice fat, rounded, teardrop shaped bead made out of amazingly hig h grade dendritic silver ore crystals in matrix from the Beaver Mine in Cobalt, Ontario.  I hand cut this "wearable specimen" myself.   It measures 37x25mm by 18mm thick with an 3mm drill hole.  It has a high polish and looks great!  Because this IS silver, it will need an occasional wipe with a polishing cloth to remove oxidation & tarnish, but it is super shiny and dense metal!  

and this is another piece  from the same material in the shape of a shield.   There's a "black tornado" on one side and a silver winged "angel image" on the other!  It measures 53x17mm by 10mm thick with an 3mm drill hole. 

  

This is a really nice flat backed, rounded face, shield shaped bead made out of amazingly high grade COBALT ORE in matrix from the Frontier Mine in Silver Center, Ontario.  I hand cut this "wearable specimen" myself.   It measures 43x14mm by 8mm thick with an 1.5mm drill hole.  

    and this is a rounded freeform in the same cobalt ore, but it shows a little bit more of the contrasting white matrix.... It measures 45x18mm by 11mm thick with an 3mm drill hole. 

 

That's it for now.  I gotta go and finish cleaning out my old studio and setting up my new temp workshop.  Thanks for looking.

 

Great stones! I love the silver!

I love the pointy shapes you do. I make alot of Native American type jewelry and am partial to bullets, blades, and triangular stones. What do you normally charge for custom cutting in sizes around 2-4 inches? I am interested in starting a line in which I use really nice boulder opal focals with PMC but have not found somebody to do the cutting as of yet.

 If you'd rather not quote on the forum, let me know another place where I can contact you.

 

Thanks!

 

 Hi,  Sorry to say Giftbearer, but I really don't do custom cutting anymore.  On very rare occasions do I make special pieces, but you never know.   I've got THOUSANDS of pieces of ALL kinds of stones from all over the world just waiting to be turned into beads and pendants and there's only one of me.   Right now that one of me doesn't even have my studio completely set up yet and once it's set up I can only work there till the end of the month before I have to move into a different place that I've yet to find.  I'm working with friends to set up an artists co-op, studio, and performance space here in Portland and am hoping that something comes of that quickly.   We've been looking at various warehouse spaces.   We shall see.... meanwhile, here's some things that have come out of my last plunge into grinding spaces....

Matte finish unakite, state stone of Virginia.   Lovely rounded navette with some natural pits in the stone.... 

 

 A big, thin, low domed, Picasso Marble pendant with a 2.5mm hole drilled across it....   and here's a lovely fan shaped dangle of petrified dinosaur bone  there are actually little sparkly  bits in the cells, but that doesn't come through in the image....

 this is a copper ore from Arizona, lots of chrysocolla veiniing in quartzite, but no obvious specks of copper.   Lovely SW'ern colors though.... 

and this is Parrot Wing Jasper, a much higher quality cousin to the above stone.  It's a silicated copper ore that is very hard, colorful and consistent.   This Parrot Wing Jasper is from old stock that was mined out in Mexico in the 1960's.   I only had a tiny bit left of this, and made three beads out of it.  I do have more of the inferior quality like one sees above, but the Parrot Wing is sweet!    and then there's this really spectacular, 3 BILLIION year old gemstone from Greenland.   It's called Nuumite (or Nuummite, or Nummite, or Nummit, etc) and it very hard to come by. This is one of the nicest pieces I've ever cut.   It's sort of like shooting stars of spectrolite, with labradorescent threads weaving a kind of waterfall effect.  Predominant color of the flashes are a kindof silvery blue.... the  pics do NOT do it justice!

 

That's it for now!  Have a great day and thanks for looking at my work.    

I took a look at your work listed on eBay, it is really beautiful. I don't do beading, but I can clearly see the silver, bronze, and gold foil work surronding these stones in neckpieces.

Lu Ann M.

 Hey All,   I finally got the studio and the office working again!   here's a taste of some new stuff....  this copper slag from an old copper smelter.  The little white chunks are pieces of the kiln brick.  Part of my "dog tag" series....

 

and a lovely, matte finish Chinese Writing Rock, shield shaped stone....

   more to come soon.

 Hi all, been back and busy at it!  Here's some new stuff I just finished this week....

a freeform black onyx with drusy quartz crystals on the end.  It is SOOOOO hard to get a good polish on black onyx without any scratches showing.   Lots of work, but worth it.  

Here's another one in black drusy PSILOMELANE that I really, really love.   I don't have any of this material left in this quality, it is the hardest and dirtiest material to cut...   I just found a monster crystal of Spectrolite at a gem show this weekend and cut this beauty out of it (spectrolite is the trade name for labradorite from Finland, if it's not from Finland, it's NOT spectrolite!)    it's got TWO parallel 3mm drill holes for creative beading....  and I can't seem to get the sparkle and flash out of my system, perhaps it's because the weather has turned so dark and gloomy.... this is also drusy quartz crystals on a psilomelane and chalcedony mix....    and I continue my obsession with metal minerals - metal ores to be used in one of a kind centerpiece beads.   Heck, no one else is doing it!   This is an unusual amulet style bead with plumes of dendritic SILVER ore crystals in matrix!   It's sort of like some spacey picture jasper, the way I cut it....   and I'll leave it at that!   I'm off to the studio to get some work in.   I hear some petrified wood dog tags and dangles calling me.   Oh, and I got a cool slice of petrified SEA SPONGE at the Gem & Mineral show this last weekend that I'm excited about working on!   Thanks for looking at my work and have a great day!

 Hi Folks!     LOTS going on here at DVHdesigns (that would be my life...)!   I FINALLY found a permanent, long term, FABULOUS studio space where I'll have plenty of room to work, 24/7 access, a community of industrial artists and freaks around me, AND it's even written in the lease that it's even expected to play ones music loud enough to hear over industrial equipment AND earplugs!   My kinda space!   I'm getting a 750 sq ft studio and will take about a third of that and share the rest with some friends and the artists non-profit I'm starting here in Portland.   In the rest of the 23,000 sq ft warehouse there are all sorts of other artists and several thousand sq ft of shared common space for working on big projects and having at least monthly art events, along with Tuesday night movie-bbq every week!  The place is called the "WatershedPDX" and it also contains a non-profit called the "Tool Shed" which is putting together community wood shop, metal shop, ceramics studio, dark room, & digital videography studios.  I feel very blessed as I've been looking for something like this for YEARS and the owner-operators of this place really, really WANT to rent to me.  They think having a Radical Faerie Lapidary Artist based there is great!   So I move into my new space sometime in early to mid-November, and my community of Radical Faeries here in Portland is hosting our Day of the Dead ritual-feast-celebration in the big common space at the Watershed on November 4th.   It will be a real blessing to have all my people there celebrating with our ancestors just as I'm getting ready to move in to my own creative space there.   Thanks to all who sent me their prayers and well wishes for me finding a space!

 
THEN of course I'm getting ready for my first "commercial" bead show in over 6 years!   The Portland Bead Society show is the weekend of Nov 3-4.   I was a vendor there for about 10 years and it was always a great show for me and lots of fun.   We have SUCH a GREAT bead society here in Portland.   So I'm busy getting back into production so I'll have a bunch of  GREAT inventory for my comeback appearance.   Of course I have to keep up with my store listings and sales as I need to get display trays and lights for the show, not to mention security deposit and rent for my new studio, etc.  

 
So I'm busy and blessed but thought it best that I show off some of the new things I'm working on and let folks  know that I'm thankful for their support.  Also that I'm having a sale in my store to keep things rolling.    Here's two  pieces that I made from one slab of a new material I recently got at a gem and mineral show here in Portland a few weeks ago.   It's called Javanese Lace agate, basically because it's a banded agate from the island of Java, in Indonesia....

 ...and a rounded, matte finish, banded amethyst lace agate from Mexico.  I had one slab of this in my collection of old stock material....

My friend Joe has recently been singing that old Elvis song, "Wooden Heart", I guess he's had it stuck in his head and now it's stuck in mine.   I just keep hearing that refrain, "..But I don't have a wooden heart" and it's driven me to make Petrified wood hearts so that a person CAN have a wooden heart! (not too mention a heart of stone at the same time!)  Both these are from material collected up around Saddle Mountain in Washington State.  One big, rounded and polished with a 3mm drill hole side to side....  and this other one is flat faced, rounded edges, with a 2mm drill hole going down the center to a 5mm round "donut hole" which allows for creative beading with a free floating-spinning bead in the center of the heart, or one could just have a "hole in their heart of stone and wood".   Talk about a bead laden with metaphor... great wood grains, patterns and colors in both.   At the same show where I got the Javanese lace agate I got ONE slab of what was being sold as petrified-agatized SEA SPONGE which was mined in Durango, Mexico.   It's definitely some kind of marine fossil, but I'm not a paleo-marine biologist, so I'll have to take their word for it on the sea sponge part, but it's VERY cool, especially this one piece with a drusy quartz vug in it....

....Naturally, me being me, I CAN'T work entirely in natural gemstones when there are soooooo many FABULOUS faux gemstones out there!   There are even faux faux gemstones!   This is an example of faux fordite, my brother bought the slab off of eBay and it was even listed as faux fordite.   I only got one slab and will only make 5 or 6 pieces from it....

quite striking colors and patterns there, but obviously not REAL Fordite.   I only have tiny scraps of real fordite left but I'll laminate them and make some cool beads out of them.   I'll conclude with a lovely specimen of the faux gemstone that has made me famous...the one, the only, BOWLERITE!   This is a lovely purple and teal lustrous aventurescent bowlerite heart...    I am the first person to ever use bowlerite in beads although I have seen one or two people copy this work.   Bowlerite is a trademark of DVHdesigns.  

JUST call a phone call from my patron in Scotland!   I  knew she was going to be in Houston next week visiting friends but really thought nothing of it.   It's 2,000 miles away from here after all, and she does travel quite a bit.   Well she just told me that she's flying from Houston to Portland to come to the Bead Show here!  I'm just gobsmacked that she'd do that!   I better get back to the studio and get cranking.   Thanks for looking and have a great day!  (it's in the 70's and sunny here in Portland!  YEAH!)

 Hi folks, Well I finally got my studio moved and my equipment set up again!  So I'll get back to work cutting new stuff tomorrow.  I'll have to work around some things as while I was getting ready for the PBS bead Bazaar two weeks ago my leather-felt polisher motor burned out and my two most important diamond sanding belts shredded, but I'll still be able to work on a wide variety of things.   The Bazaar was my first "commercial" show in 5+years and it went very well so I'm pleased.   Looking forward to making LOTS more stuff now that I have a studio where I have unlimited hours to work and can make as much noise as I want!  

Here's some of the recent goodies I made for the show....  a really, really nice big chrysocolla-malachite piece....

and a nice gaspeite tear.  This material from Australia isn't being mined anymore and much of what you see on the market is dyed howlite or turquoise.   This piece has some natural pits and inclusions but it quite solid and has a good polish.   It's the last "solid" piece I have, the rest has lots of veins of brown matrix in it.  I got my rough over 10 years ago and the little bit of rough I see on eBay now really sells for a premium....    this is what it looks like with more of the matrix in it, still quite beautiful and great contrast! 

I keep getting called to cutting petrified dinosaur bone.  Just got some new rough in the mail yesterday and will cut that tomorrow.   here's a nice bead made out of a slice that I left the "rind" of the bone on the outer edge and polished the faces and top...    All those years I spent silversmithing and working with jewelers are still in my blood  as I keep working with metal minerals too!  This is a lovely, weighty bead made out of high grade cobalt ore with matrix from Ontario, Canada....    and being here in Portland the recycling ethos is so strong, so this is recycled copper saturated kiln brick.  The white bits are the ceramic kiln brick from the copper smelter.   Nice low domes, rounded edges, and fun freeform shape....  and last but not least is my last serious chunk of HIGH GRADE natural, native, genuine SILVER ore from Ontario, Canada.   This heart shaped bead is chock full of shiny bits of real silver with a light grey matrix.   Because of the shape of the rough material I left one side natural to maximize it's size and shape.  I also like the contrast between the two sides.     and here's a shot with both the front and back with a ruler for scale...

 

Well that's it for now!   Thanks for looking and have a nice day.   If you'd like to see more of my work just click on the link under my signature line below.  

 Hi David!

Great to see you are still around and still posting your wonderful pendants and beads.

Good luck at the PBS show. 

 Hi All and hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving!   I spent my Turkey Day hanging out at a friends house with 40 other Radical Faeries gathered for Thanksgiving and we had quite the feast!    We're talking about having to rent a banquet hall next year!  

 Thanks for the feedback Marta.   I certainly do try to keep it interesting for folks.   There are so few of us "cutters" out there and even fewer who make beads, let alone original beads in unusual gemstones and alternative lapidary materials.   Luckily I have been able to carve out my own niche.    It helps to carve your own niche if you know how to carve with diamond tools.   Here's a taste of what's new from the studio....

amethyst lace agate from Mexico.  From one slab of old stock I had sitting around the studio for years.  I call this shape my "Donut heart pendant" because it's my basic classic heart shape but with a 5-6 mm "donut hole" in the center AND a 2mm drill hole down the cleft of the heart into the center of that hole.  It's nice to be able to string something like this with your own special bead at the "Center of the hole in your heart" (and it can spin to boot!).   Rounded faces and satinny matte finish...   and for that more tribal, primitive look, a slightly baroque, smoothly bumpy, rounded teardrop of Indian Paint Stone from Death Valley....,

I've relented in the face of overwhelming demand and have finally fully embraced the beauty and joy that are fabulous faux gemstone material.   I'm so grateful to be the original and premier maker of bowlerite (TM) beads!   I loooove this flaming orange teardrop bead out of a particularly bright and chatoyant piece of a bowlerite sphere.....   and the bubblegum pink swirl  bowlerite is also quite "striking"...  gotta go now!  

 

 

 Howdy all!   Well, I keep getting sucked into my own little weird world of faux gemstones.   I can't get enough of bowlerite!   Here's some new colors I've been working with.... I call this "silver cloud"

and this is a really rich, chatoyant emerald green...    and if you know anyone name MARY, this would make a great gift!   I cut the bowling ball carefully so that they engraved name on the outside of the ball was incorporated as part of the bead-pendant  and I REALLY love this FLAMING orange color of bowlerite.  It's super chatoyant and I made this piece into a splitter bead...    anyhow.  That's it for now.   I should go out and get supplies so that I'm prepared for the MONSTER STORM that's supposed to hit Oregon this weekend.  They're talking 100mph winds AND snow!   People in Portland don't DO snow, as it happens so rarely, and if we're pounded with hurricane force winds, who know's what could happen.   I guess I may end up huddled around candles for warmth.   Take care and have a great weekend everyone!

 

Hi All,  well I survived the wet and the 9 inches of rain and my neighborhood didn't flood, nor did the area around my studio down by the river, so all is ok here!   I'm finally getting back in the studio and here's some new stuff...

 another high grade, dendritic silver ore bead, which I really like...

and I'm pretty sure that this is from a wacky specimen of pyrite.  I left one face and edge natural, and polished the other face and edge for a neat contrast.  The polished side looks very much like bronze, but it's a mineral not a metal!!

and a darker, really masculine feeling, petrified dinosaur bone shield bead....

 

that's all for now.  I've got some other neat stuff that just came out of the tumbler and will be cutting malachite tomorrow (if my pump holds out).  I also found two new FABULOUS colored bowlerite spheres at the Goodwill but got to get access to a better saw to cut them up!  Have a nice day and thanks for looking at my stuff.  

Thanks for posting all of these fabulous pictures of your work.  You have such unique and interesting pieces.   I really love the stones that are silver.

Thanks aimee-r, I really like working in the metal minerals and that dendritic silver ore is especially amazing!  Check out the Copper Pyrite bead below, which I just made. --D

 Howdy All and Happy New Year and Surviving the Holidays to each and everyone!  I really breathe a sigh when the Holidays are over and suddenly I feel JUMP STARTED to get ready for Tucson!   My studio is pretty much near freezing cold but I have heat lamps on me and I microwave water to put in my grinding pans so my hands don't get tooooo cold.   Growing up in Michigan helped me develop some tolerance for the cold but it's still harsh.  Portland has such a WET cold!   Anyhow, in 4 weeks I start a 3 week road trip to Tucson so I best get busy!  here is some recent stuff I worked on the past week or so.   I feel like I have to start a whole new thread to just discuss the visions of bowlerite that are dancing in my head....

 This is an EXTREMELY rare New Jersey Sunstone.  A coppery feldspar that ONE rockhound found a deposit of ONE time and I only have a few ounces of it left!    and I got this ONE piece of Fordite for Christmas, although I think it is more likely Boat Paint-ite, and not genuine Fordite car paint from an old automobile factory. Still, the rough is very hard to come by and this is a striking two holed pendant with one side polished and one side left natural....        I also got one slab of a metal rich copper nickle ore.  The shiny gold is chalcopyrite (copper pyrite).  This metal mineral was formed 1.85 BILLION years ago when a 2 mile diameter asteroid hit the area of Ontario, Canada with the force of thousands of hydrogen bombs!  (for real, it's from the Sudbury Complex).   The heat melted all sorts of metal ores together and this metal mineral rich region is mined today for all sorts of stuff!  Very little makes it to a lapidary since it's all destined for smelters to keep our economy chugging along.   Anyhow, some would call this "Apache Gold" but there weren't no Apache's in Ontario....   and of course I'm doing some LAZY stuff like cutting up lava (not from Hawaii, Pele free!)....       and then I work in my classic gemstone materials, but leave them with a matte finish, like this denim lapis lazuli "wave bead"    and I had a custom order for some Malachite, which I forgot how much I liked working...

 

that's it for now.  Time for some food and a late night at the studio!  Take care all!

 David,

I hope the show goes well and I admire people who come together  to work and to help others as you and you community does. I bet there is great Karma around there. I love your work and can tell that you put great pride into all you do. The stones take my breath away..

Cathy 

 

 

 Hi Cathy,  thanks for the kind words.  I'm gonna have a trunk show on January 26th to help pay for my Tucson trip.  I'll be grinding like crazy to get ready for that!   There is good karma around me but I'm still pretty isolated as an artist.  I'm still trying to find artists to sublet space from my studio.  I signed a year lease on a studio that is 3 times the size that I need (and 3 times what I can afford), so I'm keeping my fingers crosses that the right people show up!  In the meantime I keep cutting away and doing new things....

Here's some of what I've been cutting in the New Year, and I'm starting to go full bore as I leave for Tucson in less than 3 weeks!  EEEK!   Wayyyyyy toooo much on my plate, but somehow I'll get it all shoveled down.   Anyhow, I found this last chunk of SUGILITE floating around the studio and made these two lovely beads out of it, and will maybe get two or three more, but not of this quality.  The rough is from S. Africa and is quite pricey.  Not on my Tucson shopping list, but it's nice to cut and the purple is really different.... 
  and I've been working on this really cool metal mineral from Ontario, Canada.  It's a dense copper nickel ore with flashy gun metal flakes of chalcopyrite in a really nice contrasty black matrix.  Very consistent and took a nice polish.  This tapered shape is one of my favorite shapes...    this focal bead was made from a nugget of Candelaria Variscite from Nevada (related to turquoise).  The line is a completely healed natural feature....   
 and I'm back to doing some "amulet" or "dangle" style beads like this one which I made from a banded jasper of unknown origin, although it could probably be safely called hickoryite or wonderstone and you probably wouldn't get too much of an argument from a rockhound....   That's all for now.  I gotta hit the hay.  Thanks for looking and have a great day!