I have always been fascinated with the human process involved in transforming raw stone into utilitarian and ornamental objects. As a small child growing up in the Deep South, I would pick up about every pointed rock that I found and say to my father, “Daddy, Daddy, is this an arrowhead?”. His answer was always “No”. “But how can I tell?”, I would ask. “You’ll know when you find one” was his final answer. Well, I didn’t feel that was a very adequate answer, but found out that in reality, it was quite true. One day, in an old abandoned cotton field behind my house, I saw “IT“…. a small orange projectile point sitting atop its low pedestal of red Georgia clay. It seemed to glow with a certain inner spirit that other rocks simply didn’t possess. As I picked it up, I could feel the life force of the person who had taken the rough stone and by virtue of his skill, had transformed it into an object pictured only in his mind. Although the craftsman had been dead for centuries, his spirit seemed to still radiate from this product of his handiwork.

Eventually a time came when I needed to commit to a major in college. Obviously with a love to both create and study man-made objects, I took on the study of Studio Art and History. After graduating from Troy University in 1971, I was blessed to land a job at the Arizona-Sonoran Desert Museum in Tucson, Arizona. Here I fell in love with all aspects of both the Natural and Ethnological Histories of the Great American Southwest. In 1974, I moved to the Zuni Mountains of West Central, New Mexico and built a log cabin utilizing only an ax, hammer and handsaw. Soon I landed a job at the nearby Ice Caves Trading Post and had an opportunity to further develop an appreciation of the local Zuni and Navajo arts and artisans. Since I didn’t have electricity at my cabin at the time, working with electrical equipment in one of the several old hunting cabins there allowed me to improve both my silversmithing and lapidary skills that I had begun to develop earlier in Tucson.

Over the years I have continued my research of ancient & contemporary jewelry designs, lapidary materials and gemstone trade routes of the world but especially the American Southwest. At different times I lived in Santa Fe& Albuquerque, all over Alabama and the Greek island of Crete, always trying to improve my skills and knowledge of gemstones and jewelry design & construction. In the mid-1990’s, I began mining my own turquoise from the hills of Cerrillos and Hachita, New Mexico for my own personal jewelry line as well as supplying select Southwestern and Native American artisans. I presently operate turquoise mines in Hachita, New Mexico as well as the Royston & Candelaria Hills, Carico Lake Valley, McGinniss Hills and Austin areas of Nevada. Gem variscite comes from my claims in Esmeralda and Mineral Counties, Nevada and I produce other lapidary materials from different areas across the western US.

I am also proud to announce that I recently co-authored a book named The Great American Turquoise Rush with Mike Ryan which covers the early history of turquoise mining in the US with a special focus on the years between 1890-1910. It's been a labor of love for over twenty years...

Over forty-five years after being given my first piece of turquoise while working at the Arizona-Sonoran Desert Museum, I have continued to learn and develop knowledge and skills in my chosen fields and hope to keep learning new things for many more years to come….