The Boss of The Moss

For a brief period in my life, I was a golf professional. I wasn't very good- hence the adjective "brief" and even though I haven't played for close to a decade, I still follow the game. This is Masters Sunday, a special day for all golfers, as it is the culmination of the Masters Golf Tournament from Augusta Georgia. In honour of this, and since my latest piece features a really nice local moss agate, I am naming it "The Boss of the Moss" after one of the best putters ever- Loren Roberts- who was so good that in 1985, a fellow competitor gave him that nickname (one I think is the best ever).

This stone was found virtually across the street and was originally round. After I had run it through the tumbler, the deal is I show all the rocks to Vickie (She who MUST be Obeyed!) and she takes the ones she wants for jewelry. This one she asked me to cut in half and drill and so of course, it got cut and drilled. We then used a balled copper wire to do a cool "funky wrap"at the top and put it on a waxed cotton cord with a copper clasp and now it is, with apologies to Mr. Roberts, The Boss of the Moss.
When viewed with light behind, a very interesting pattern shows up. A lot of people think that moss agates are green in white but, in truth, they can be many colours as long as the patterning is organic.

All in all, a very interesting local stone.

Back on The Bench

The nice rockhounding weather of the past few days left yesterday afternoon. In fact, last night we had high winds, snow, freezing rain, ice pellets and finally rain. Then this morning, we were back to wet snow.
It was time to move indoors and finish some pieces and what better stone to work on than a piece from Brazil! I felt warmer just touching the stone (heh,heh)- a nice piece of crazy lace jasper.
For the last few days, I have been experimenting with a totally new (at least to us) technique for setting stones using only copper wire and after a few failures, it worked!

If the stone looks familiar, it is because I did a similar piece with a different setting a few months back. Remember this:

As I said, the setting is unique, and allows me to use finer wire (in this case 20 gauge) and still have the stone snugly and firmly set. I took a picture of the back and if anyone reading the blog is interested, if you ask nicely I will send it to you via email.

On the yarn front, sales have been pretty brisk over the last week or so but we are expecting a large shipment early next week so the shelves will be fully stocked and with some new colours!

Cheers and hope to see you soon!

Another Nice Piece of Bay of Fundy Agate

It is really cold here today but Vickie, the lady with The Agate Eye, was not to be deterred. She managed to come home with this beauty!

The patterning was so amazing that I had to cut it and here is the thin end section.

The rest of the cut stone looks like this.

So now I will glue this face to a piece of 2x4 so I can cut quarter inch slices. Pretty interesting.

Keeping Touch With School Friends
Don't know about you but I really enjoy staying in contact with people I went to school with. One of them, Apryll, lives in the U.S. now and follows my blog and recently she contacted me about a piece she had seen. She is now the proud (I hope!) owner of said piece and was kind enough to send me some pics.
Here's Apryll wearing the piece:

And here's a close up of the piece:

Personally, I think she makes a really nice piece of Mexican Crazy Lace Agate look even better!
I really enjoy making pieces like this but it's really great when I can send one to a friend.

And by the way, some have asked if they can buy stuff they see on the blog and the answer is yes- if you are prepared to pay shipping. And if you don't pay for insurance, your beef is with the post office, not me. I will say that everything I have shipped to date has arrived quickly and undamaged.

Hopefully, later this year we will be selling through the Seawall Fibres website which is "under construction"

Back on The Beach

Well, the weather is improving- s l o w l y !!
But it's good enough to go looking for some rocks and work in the rock lab a bit..
I am very fortunate in that I have a wife who is gifted with "The Agate Eye". This is not to be confused with "The Evil Eye" although I'm pretty sure she has that gift as well. Vickie can literally smell agate. This first piece was in a creek bed with just a few dull inches showing at the surface. Imagine her surprise when she extricated it, turned it over and found this:

This piece actually has sections of different agate including plume, moss and fortification and areas of what I think is carnelian. It has a surface consistency of glass so it should polish amazingly but it is too big to cut on my trim saw so it will have to wait until I get the slab saw going.
But we wanted to cut something so we chose a couple of smaller pieces we found a few days ago. The first one is a little macrocrystalline but has some nice patterning.

But the next one is a real show stopper!

The picture doesn't really show the depth of colour and it isn't polished but this is going to be really nice when it is finished.
So if you like hunting for rocks, Digby Neck is a pretty good spot. And if you are in the area, come on by The Artist's mark and see some of the pieces we have collected and polished up. Everybody gets to pick a free polished stone so one way or another, you will go home with "A Piece of the Neck"!

The Mighty Bay of Fundy

One thing you can expect to see if you visit Digby Neck is a lot of diverse scenery. Take today, for instance. The waters of St.Mary's Bay in front of our house were pretty calm but just a few miles away, on the other side of the hill, this was the view.

How would you like to live here!

The real charm of Nova Scotia are the countless old coves and wharves that appear at the end of dirt roads. So when (not if) you visit, get off the highway and take the time to explore. You might even find a nice fixer upper boat like this one:

The days are getting longer and the sun is getting stronger so now's the time to plan your Nova Scotia vacation. And when you do, leave plenty of time to explore my neighbourhood- the unique, scenic gem known as Digby Neck!
(And don't forget to stop at The Artist's Mark to pick up your free piece of The Neck).

The Before...

Most of the time, I show you the "after"- the end result of rocks that have been cut, ground, polished, drilled and set but today I thought I'd show the "before"- what they look like at the beginning, before I have even scraped off the barnacles.
It's misty rain and foggy here today but yesterday was beautiful so "She Who MUST  Be Obeyed and I went on a little rockhounding expedition.
At one point we found a few large boulders with some really nice vein material and this was both good and bad news since I then had to go back and get a 20 lb. sledge hammer But I have to say it was worth it. Here's a bit of what we came back with.

This is a nice piece of agate showing plume and fortification characteristics. There will be even more detail when it is polished.

This is amethyst that was sitting as a face on top of a beautiful agate seam.

Some really nice fortification agate that will make an amazing pendant when finished.

This shows you the power of tectonic forces.The black rock (an igneous rock called basalt) has been shattered by some force and the spaces filled with a mineral called stilbite which later has been partially replaced by agate.

This is an amazing seam that includes fortification agate and possibly some carnelian. It will polish up like glass!

Lastly, a huge chunk of what appears to be straw agate. If so, it will show some amazing patterning when it is cut and should polish up really well.
All this rock was found on Digby Neck so if you are looking for a place to find some really interesting stuff, come on down! And if you do, stop by the VT Rock Shop at The Artist's Mark and see how this material is transformed into a beautiful end product.

Why "The Artist's Mark" (and no, my name's not Mark)

Every year several people come through the door and ask if I am Mark. I say that no, my name is Peter (although sometimes Vickie refers to me by other names that can't be typed here- well deserved, she says).
We call our shop The Artist's Mark because it reflects the contents. Pretty much every piece of every item is hand made and thus bears the mark of the artist. This is something we feel is very important, even more so in our age of mass, cookie-cutter production.
We were reminded of this when we were having coffee this morning and looked up and saw these beams.

The house was built in 1849, from timbers of a ship that went down in the bay across the road so these hand hewn beams (each about 30 feet long) were probably made 200 years ago! We have 10 of them so about 300 feet of beams. How long did it take to make these? Where were they made originally? What kind of men did the work? Why are there holes and indentations at certain points? Would one ask any of these questions if you were looking up at a steel I-beam?
So when you look at pieces in the shop, if you look closely, you will always find the mark of the artist. A customer asked recently if I put an identifying mark on my pieces and I answered "Tons of 'em- just look closely and you'll see tiny scratches and nicks in the copper and often little irregularities in the shape, etc. of the stones- these are all my identifying marks and show where and how the material was handled". So it has a story- a history as it were and we feel strongly that this adds not only to the charm, but to the value.
A perfect case in point is the piece I just finished.

It,s called Sea Foam and is a local piece of jasper that Vickie found nearby. If you look closely, you will see marks where I nipped the ends of the wires and filed them smooth and where I pinched it to hold the leather cord. You'll see hammer marks where I flattened the copper bar so I could drill it.
The main stone has beautiful patterning and shows why I prefer agate and jasper to gem stones.

But as you can see, there are some tiny pits in the surface and the shape is not perfectly symmetrical. Some would have filled the pits with resin and made the stone symmetrical but I find that boring. It was a collaborative effort. I cut, ground, polished and drilled the stone and God chipped in with the amazing patterns.
So if you are looking for perfection, if you want cookie cutter, you will be disappointed at The Artist's Mark. But if you like unique pieces that tell a story, you will definitely like our shop.
And by the way, if you want to read more about artist's marks check out Vickie's polymer clay blog. Just do a google search on "claymagination".
Hope to see you soon!