Gary Wilson!

Much of this weekend, heck all of this past weekend was amazing, but a major highlight was our trip to Gary Wilson's home in Tucson. Gary carves rocks, and drills them for beads and makes matched cabochon sets for bead embroidery.

It all started out with Mark asking where he might find some turquoise and Kate saying I could call Gary. Dustin came up with Gary's card and phone number, Kate called, Gary was in and we were welcome to come by. Wow! If you don't know Gary's work, he is sought after by the bead artist (and I'm sure rock enthusiasts as well, I can only speak to the bead artists) for his unusual stones. He sells his work at two venues in Tucson during the gem and jewelry show and at Bead and Button, but.....since he has a huge following, it's hard to see everything up close and personal, and hard to come by Gary's time to explain the finer points of a stone since he tends to be so busy.

A chance to go to his home, see his own vast collection, hear him give the history of any stone you can point to, mindboggling.

Being the sparkly girl of the bunch I was after drusies to put in my new crystal ring, but as happens with Gary's stones, I found a few other things as well.

Gary was so gracious, while the lot of us selected our individual finds and exclaimed over our good fortune. Thank you Gary, I loved it!

Here are Teresa and Jean, don't they look like happy girls? And Gary head down unfortunately, writing up our purchases, we kept him busy.

Here is one of the several drusie's I purchased for my new ring series
and a few of things I picked up including a cone shape of petrified wood and a copper infused brick from an old copper factory (I believe in Michigan, but then I don't have Gary's encyclopedic knowledge and no retention)
This was the open ring that was closed up for the dream keeper series, but I made a second for the drusie above
On Sunday Mark and I departed and I was touched after hugs and goodbyes all around the group all came out for a last good bye.