Tucson Trip

Hi Everyone!
As Jilienne mentioned, we just got back from back-to-back business trips. Our first stop was Tucson, to shop at the annual Gem & Mineral Show. This is a sprawling show that takes over Tucson for the first couple weeks of February each year; it’s usually a lot of fun, but also overwhelming. I always go with my list of Needs, and then open myself up to be "wowed" or "inspired"… to see something that’s new to me. Sometimes it is not necessarily new to the industry, but just hits me as “right”; other times it is so new that I can only find a little bit of the stone and the next year it floods the market! (This has happened to me several times.) I also get very enticed by certain stones that end up sitting in my vault for years, crying out for me to use them. (A few times, these vaulted stones turned out to be the next big trend, which I missed because I didn't get around to making the new design.) I usually try not to follow trends; I prefer to close my eyes and follow my heart. That is why it is funny to me when someone says, "I see you are using a lot of 18k Pink gold. Is that in?" I laugh and say, "I have always used a lot of 18k Pink Gold. The rest of the world is just now catching up!" This happened with the Copper Rutile (a very special Quartz) that I use too!
I am very picky about which colors I like to use, and I tend to make myself mad trying to find the right shade of gemstone. Last year, I fell in love with Grey (Grey Quartz and Rough Grey Diamonds,) but it had to be that perfect light charcoal color that looks amazing with my Crushed Melange (tri-color) Collection. This year, everything looked the same to me… nothing was calling out, “Pamela! Make something with me!” (with the exception of bi-color Tourmaline, which I always love but rarely use.) By the third day of walking the Show, I was getting a little depressed… even though I’d found some beautiful rough cut diamonds, I still hadn’t found my Wow! Stone. And then it hit me, (Wham!) from two different directions! Iridescent Milky Diamonds, and Platinum Rutile! My mind has been waking me up in the middle of the night to draw and sculpt new shapes to go with these fabulous stones! This particular Rutile is very rare -- I can only get it from one mine in Brazil, and everything they mined is already carved, so I can’t get matching stones for earrings -- but I can make rings, necklaces and bracelets and it is soooo cool. It looks great with all of my metal colors! It is very specific, and not for everyone, but I absolutely love it!! The Milky Diamonds will probably become a bridal-ish ring group (yes I wrote “bridal-ish”) because I think they’ll make great right-hand-rings, but a cool bride would love to wear one as her wedding ring.
I can't wait to show all of you what I do with my new stones!

Cheers & Crushes!
Pamela