Adventures in Stone: Tucson Madness – May/June 1999

It’s early February, sunny with a brilliant blue sky and a high of 65 degrees. Perfect weather has always welcomed me to the “Emerald City.” No, not the Emerald City that’s known for its green trees, but the City of Tucson, Arizona with its magical Wizard of Ozlike annual extravaganza of an unimaginable kaleidoscope of stones and rocks.

Each year, over a two-week period starting in late January, caravans of gem and stone dealers from across the world overrun this desert city with their billowy white tents and barrels full of rocks. Some may come to sell their entire years production of rhodochrosite, a translucent pink quartz that forms as stalagmites in Argentinean caves. Others, from Europe, come to trade “micros” mineral specimens to complete their collections. I come to ogle, caress, salivate and if I can’t resist their metamorphic advances any further – to buy!

The annual Tucson gem and mineral show is not just a single exhibition. Actually, over 25 independent shows overtake the town like a Mongol horde on amphetamines. Every hotel is sold out months ahead of time and display space is so short that some hotels are even converted into a room-by-room show themselves. Knotted in hallways, over a drink comparing the day’s conquests or just passing along their secrets with a wink and smile, rock enthusiasts fill every bar, restaurant and street corner.

Anyone with a fascination for stone knows they have found their very special kind of Oz. Over the last decade I’ve enjoyed the fossil shows where you can even buy real dinosaur eggs; the AGTA show that is the largest colored gemstone show in the world – full of rubies, emeralds and sapphires, and the mineral shows whose specimens exceed most displays seen in museums. Lately though, my tastes have moved from the small and geometric to the large and amorphous chunks of stone that lie in unassuming dusty piles outside of many of the tents.

Sculpting size stones. Not little sissy sized stones you could pick up and skip across a ri ver, but, stones that you wrestle with to create something new and exciting. Stones the size that can hurt you if you don’t treat them with the proper respect. Big, ugly stones on the outside, that, with a little diamond polish, will put on a Cinderella smile for you. And, in this Ozian world, newly discovered stones that have never been seen before. Of course there are the marbles and alabaster. But, how about a 400 pound block of zebra marble with black and white wavy bands offered for $1.20 a pound? This was one of my favorite finds this year. Each year something new appears and, unfortunately due to their unique nature, some rocks are never to be seen again. For instance, several years ago, a couple of Canadian miners on their only trip to Tucson lugged down an 85 pound chunk of amazonite (@$1.50/ lb.) the color of blue glacial ice from their mine above the Arctic Circle. Other dealers carry a wide variety of quartzes (green, pink and purple), agates and calcites (orange and blue) for a few dollars a pound. Piles of stone lie on the ground waiting for someone to take them home and find true love.

For some reason, sculpture in not a big part of the Tucson shows. To most rock hounds, sculpture consists of putting rose quartz in a sphere-making machine and producing pink bowling balls. To the gem dealers, carving means mass-produced animals from cheap malachite or lapis in Hong Kong.

But, the opportunity of Tucson is so much greater to someone who recognizes the potential. Boulder sized chunks of jet black labradorite roast in the desert sun with a sheen that has a flashy rainbow iridescence like oil on water. It reminds me of a stone I would carve if I had a statement to make about war. Or, take for example, my second favorite find this year, red aventurine. A member of the quartz family, green aventurine from Australia is fairly common. But r can’t believe red aventurine in 50 to 100 pound chunks is selling for only $1.50 per pound. Oh la la!! This is gem material that polishes up like quartz with a reddish cast and little red dots. Aventurine is much more exciting than clear optical quartz and a fraction of the price. It’s so near Valentines day that all 1 see are oversized hearts made from red aventurine.

Okay, I know quartz is tough to carve, but the Chinese sometimes passed a single piece of jade through several generations to complete a carving. Such a nice complement to our 53.6kbs world! Besides, the Chinese only had sand lacquered onto sticks; we’ve got industrial strength diamonds sintered to multi-horse powered tools. Handily, all the major gem and rock equipment manufacturers are also on hand with an enormous variety of tools to assist you in your cutting and polishing needs. So while you’re loading that zebra marble, labradorite and red aventurine into the 01′ pickup, check out the diamond band saws, carving wheels and water cooled diamond sanders at wholesale prices. Of course, not everything 1s inexpensive. The queen of the show was a $20,000 piece of perfectly blue chrysocolla the size of a small microwave casually reclining on the grass of the Day’s Inn courtyard. Big chunks of gem quality lapis from the same mine in Afghanistan that has provided lapis for thousands of years and produced, by grinding it up and adding a touch of oil, the shade of ultramarine used in Rembrandt’s paintings is always available for a princely price. One of my favorite stones looks like a

spotted jade embedded with cherries. Zoisite is a tremendously beautiful ruby ore that I find more attractive than the opaque rubies themselves. The Indian jade-like matrix polishes up like the finest translucent green jade and the rubies vary from raisin-sized to grapefruits. The cheaper versions of zoisite run around $] 0 to $15 a pound. Given the toughness of the rubies, you don’t need a lot of this to keep you busy, so I think zoisite is very affordable at this price range. An ambitious jade carver up to the ruby challenge might have had the constitution to ask the price of the 200 pound monolithic block of perfect zoisite. Passing only with an obligatory curtsey, I dared not ask that question myself.

Instead, my eyes caught the sight of a football sized piece of gem quality opaque chrysoprase the color of key lime pie. As I picked it up to the light and carefully rotated it looking for flaws, I felt the beginnings of a burgeoning relationship. No, it wasn’t the typical translucent blue green, gemmy Australian chrysoprase. But, it did have a very warm and uniquely charming look glowing from within its tight crystalline structure. The retail price was $50/1b., but the wholesale price for the 30-pound little minx was only $900. In my mind it takes a lot of skill to turn beige limestone into art. Ms. chrysoprase shouted to me that it could easily surmount all of my insecurities about my sculpting skill, and create an object of glorious beauty all by herself. Heck, this little hussy of a rock could bounce out of your flatbed going 70 miles an hour on 1-5 and what was left would still make Brancusi look like an amateur. The Siren was calling ever louder. One hell of a good lookin’ slone! Still, there’d be all that explaining to do at home and I suspect it’s not worth a divorce even though 1 would consider a temporary separalion and buying the Green Goddess on installments. No, I promised myself that this year I would only buy as much as I could carve. Ha!

At Tucson, it is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all. By next year, the largest piece of raw chrysoprase I’ve ever seen will be in the arms of another. As I sit on the curb waiting for my ride out of Oz, I find solace in my box full of new rocks (3 inch thick tiger eye @ $5/lb. – should I go on?). The sky is somehow an even brighter blue and I don’t care anymore if I ever get around to carving every single piece of rock I’ve acquired. My rocks just make me happy.

For anyone willing to tempt fate, the show details:

The Tucson shows are generally scheduled a year in advance. There is only one weekend, typically the first weekend in February, where the majority of shows overlap. Several shows carrying large rough are situated along 1-10. You should plan well in advance if you want decent accommodations at reasonable rates. Having a tax J.D. number (or some friend’s) with a rock or jewelry sounding name will help get you into the wholesale shows or negotiate wholesale prices. Pack sunglasses and more courage than the Tinman to say no or save yourself the trouble and just pack lots of cash.