In Search of Material

My father instilled in me a love of hiking in the great outdoors. We did some family camping of course, but what i recall most when thinking back are the times we put on backpacks and hiked for days out into the back country. Living in Washington State allowed us to explore amazingly secluded and magical natural places. These places resonated with the same amazing beauty and mythic quality and power as the world of The Lord Of The Rings which my father would read to us in the evenings before bed.

We would set up camp and explore the area, then, at nightfall we would observe the stars and talk about the heavens. Sometimes, when permitted, we would have a small fire. In the morning we would break camp, following my families leave no trace policy and hike further on and in to our next campsite.

When exploring the various campsites i would often find treasures. Sometimes it was a gnarly fallen tree limb which became my new walkingstick. Other times it was an amazing display of micro plant life, tiny fairy castle fungi or mossflowers. But mostly, my eyes would sieze upon remarkable stones.

My eye has always been drawn to white stones and green stones, but i would find stones of all beautiful colors. A favorite place to find beauty in stone was always a lakeshore or more likely, a creek bed. These stones, wet with glacial melt, would shine and show their colors wonderfully upon their glossy surfaces. I would pocket favorites to take back home to show mom.

Unfortunately when i pulled the now dry stones and pebbles from my pockets full of feathers, acorns and moss, they wouldn't shine with the lustre they had when wet. I would have to wet them to show her the beauty i had seen in the wild places.

When i learned basic lapidary skills i suddenly realized that i was learning how to make stones shine permanently as they would if wet. It has been very satisfying to now be able to do something with the beautiful stones i find, polish them and frame them in silver, creating treasures to be worn and displayed for ages to come.

I still enjoy hiking and now when i find those stones, i also know what i'm going to do with them. This has allowed me to turn my love for hiking into material collecting expeditions, combining doing what i love with making a living which has been a desire of mine for years, and now a manifesting intention.

A Lifelong Love of Beachcombing

Some of my most magical childhood memories are of beachcombing with my family on the North West coast of Washington State. My brother and i would play all sorts of games, hiding from each other, making or discovering huge driftwood forts where the sand had drifted and created caves smelling of the sea.

Flotsam and jetsum abounded on the coast and we revelled in most of the treasures we found. There were of course the seashells; sand dollars, mussels, limpets, oyster, clam and crab. Some beaches were covered in wonderfully polished stones and pebbles.

Occaisionally we would find beautiful glass balls used as floats for the nets of Japanese fishermen. Red, blue, clear, yellow, green they came in all colors and sizes often ranging from tennis ball sized to basketball sized. These were greatly prized and sought after for years and years of beachcombing. I have not lived on the coast for some time now and wonder if the Japanese fishermen still use these hand blown glass floats or if they, like most of the world have moved on to cheap plastic floats. I hope not.

Another favorite find was sea glass which was glass from broken bottles that had been rounded and worn by the rhythmic motion of the waves and the beach sand. This gives the glass a frosted look. The colors are wonderful, there are lots of brown pieces from beer bottles of course, but the light blue and green are also fairly prominent. Other colors are more rare, such as yellow, red or that dark lapis blue.

My brother recently sent me some of this sea glass from his beachcombing and hiking. As a lifelong hiker and photographer he often travels the beach and rain coast forest between First Beach and Third Beach as well as digging Ruby Beach and hitting Ocean Shores with his family where the love of beachcombing has been passed down to his children. I am working on designs for these pieces of sea glass in rings, earrings, pendants and necklaces.