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I was out in the greenhouse checking on my seedlings and I noticed that Colman’s Stanhopa had opened.  The plant had put out an enormous spray of buds which I thought would open soon,  I didn’t expect them to open all at once, but there they were.  Here’s Colman with the plant (the label reads Stanhopa nigroviolacea, but we’re not convinced that is the real name).

 Colman says this is the first time it has bloomed,  he got it from Santa Barbara Orchid Estate in June 2004. Here’s a close up. 

 There’s another plant in bloom among others in the greenhouse.  It is hard to photograph because it is difficult for the camera to focus on flowers that have narrow petals and the flowers are so far apart. But this is one of my favorite plants with its brown and green flowers.

We woke up this morning and as I looked out the bathroom window I was surprised that the weathermen had predicted correctly this late in winter. We had been told it would snow before but we got sun and unseasonably warm days. This is the first major pile-up this year.  I took these photos in the front and back yards before I shoveled the walkways.  It’s light snow, easy to move but a little sticky,  it’s supposed to turn to sleet and ice later today,  then it will be really difficult to get around on foot. Here’s the front of our neighbors houses across Tysen Street.

And the back yard with part of the deck. You can see it’s about 8 inches deep on the table in the yard.

I’m at the Tucson airport with a lot of time before our flight to Houston, we change there and will arrive Newark about 1:30AM. The airport wireless is free here unlike Newark and Phoenix, so I’m taking time to edit photos and add to the blog.We met George at the Convention Center to see the big displays of minerals, after we got to the floors it looked like there was mostly jewelery displays and jewelers suppliers of cut stones. A little further inside the mineral displays began to appear.There were some grand displays like this one of amazonite from various mines. 

Large impressive specimens in abundance.

I thought I would try to find examples of minerals in a classic crystal formation. Here are some of them. 

This is Anglesite with Malachite.

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This is a nice presentation of small quartz crystals on florite.

I found some emerald dealers from Bogota. They had some nice stones and I asked if they had any trappiche Emeralds. They did and showed me these cabochons. The light colored stones were about $98/carat, the darker ones in the next photo were about $108/carat. I didn’t buy any, fascinating as they are, they aren’t the color or size of the specimens I saw in a book on gems at the Smithsonian. It might make a nice ring but I didn’t fall in love with any of them (the stones were between 1.5 and about 3 carats each.

Then they handed me a piece of trappich emerald in the matrix, it’s obviously not a gem stone but the form is very nice.

We left the convention center and went back to the Inn Suites show as we hadn’t  seen it all on our first visit and the displays were as good  but less pricy than the vendors at the center. Here’s George standing among the larges lingam stones I have ever seen, some of these were over 6 feet long.

When we broke for a mid-afternoon bite to eat, Colman and I went back to the bar. There was a cashier, and then there was a waitress, while we were being waited on the cashier was still behind the bar, we thought they were one person doing both jobs until we saw two of them at the same time. I asked to take their picture for Colman’s neices to see.

We arrived in Tucson about mid day on Tuesday, Colman picked up our rental car and we drove out to Mary Jane and David’s home just out side the city limits in the shadow of the Catalina mountains. It is good to be back, the air is clean and bright with sunlight. After settling in, we took a walk around the neighborhood, here are two of Colman’s photos.

Wednesday we met with George, who had already been in Tucson since Monday, to go to the Mineral Show which takes over the city for the first two weeks of February. Our first stop was at the Inn Suites, where all the rooms were turned into little showrooms for fossils, minerals and gems. There was a big show in the ballroom and little shows were in every nook and cranny of the lobby. As we tripped into the building we passed a brown tent with this trilobite welcome mat guarded by 2 large quartz crystals.

Here’s Colman and George in the first room we visited.

Spessartine and Smoky Quartz

Microcline v. Amazonite Smoky Quartz

An unusual specimen of Calcite and quartz.

Pyrite on Quartz

Green Apophyllite

This is one of many large fossils on display. 

One end of the ballroom was dedicated to the fossil sellers. There are vendors there who are selling casts of fossils as well as the real fossil bones. The large turtle is impressive, the full spectrum ammonite fossils from Canada are there along with a sea full of crinoid fossils.

I heard guys talking about this piece of ancient sea bed, saying it took about 100 hours to clean it up to show the fossils. I’m thinking, only a hundred hours?

I found these beautiful fossils in a room showing a collection of work from Germany. It took me completely by surprise, I am used to seeing thes type of fossils as flat cockroachy things and had no idea that the living animals had antennae, tendrils(?) and tails.

Outside, in front one of the tents, these Indian river stones were laying down. There were hundreds of them in all sizes from about 2 inches to 50 inches. We saw even larger ones the next stop in Electric Park, up to 78 inches, also a part of a display of hundreds.

As we left the Inn Suites I stopped into the Brown tent at the entrance where I bought some ammonite pairs and a sand dollar that had finger-like protuberances aling one edge. This croc like fossil was centrally placed in the tent.

The first thing we saw at the Electric Park show was this split geode of Citrines

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Here’s a shot of the passage into the park, it’s amazing to see and walk through these large specimens. This is only one side of the passage into the park, the other side was just as full of crated specimens.

This is how the show is set up in Electric Park, There was also a section of vendors in RV’s in an adfjacent parking lot.

We were picked up and taken to Newark Airport very early Tuesday morning. I don’t think we have been awake this early in ages. Toni got us off of Staten Island in record time as the sun was rising in the East. It was beautiul but had a striking unusual feature I had never seen before.

Here are a couple more shots. It made me feel a little like Albrect Dürer must have felt seeing a grand natural phenomina not usually seen before and trying to record it for others to see.

Once at the airport, everything moved very efficiently, bags were checked at the curb and we went through the screening with a lot of other passengers much more quickly than I expected. Even having to remove shoes and pocket contents, while a little annoying, added no stress.

Here’s a view of the city from one of the waiting areas near our gate.

Here’s a last shot from thw jet as we flew over the Jersey wetlands, wind and cold had made an interesting ice pattern.

 Thursday’s class was to be the first time I cast anything myself. We are using cuttlefish bones for the molds and the molten silver is simply poured into the mold. Karen, our teacher, did it as a demonstration at our first class the week before. It happened quickly after she sanded the bone, cut it in half, impressed a sculptural seed into the halves and cut a passage and funnel for the silver.  The half shells were lined up  and wired together. She took the mold to a bench that has a large torch and a pan of pumice gravel.  The mold was stood up in the gravel, the torch lit and silver casting grain was put into a crucible.  She melted the silver with the torch, added a little borax to clean the metal and poured it into the mold.  When the metal no longer glowed red, she put the mold into a cooling bath of water, when the mold no longer sizzled, she cut the binding wires and released the casting from what was left of the mold (which is no longer usable).This is a movie of a casting done last Thursday after I had done most of mine.

 Casting Movie

I had prepared three molds before class because, easy as it looked when Karen did it, I was  not as likely to be as successful. I held in reserve 2 cuttlefish bones to carve in class if the first pieces didn’t work.  Which they didn’t as you can see in this photo. All the pieces were supposed to be complete, open circles.  On the first attempt, the silver didn’t even go into the mold. That piece isn’t in the photo because I re-melted it for the subsequent castings. The most successful cast was the last one that looks like a sunflower.  But even that one was incomplete and will require some re-design to become a finished piece.

This is a picture of my bench in the classroom, I have to carry a lot of tools back and forth tho school.

 At home my work bench looks like this. There are several projects in the works. 

 I am making a bracelet with these stones, they will be set into the bezels in this photo. The bezels have had the twisted wires soldered to them since this photo was taken, they provide connecting loops that will be joined by freshwater pearls wired as links. I have yet to design the clasp. I took one finished bezel to Roni to see if it could be cast, if it can, I will be able to make more bracelets and necklaces since I have a collection of stones this size. 

The Small Works Show opened yesterday at noon. Colman and I went into the city to attend and see some friends we had invited to the opening.  We got there early  and took a tour around the galleries before the crowds started to arrive.  we were greeted by a beautiful display of flowers on the reception desk.

 We found his painting in  Gallery 7. 

 Here’s the whole line up on that wall. All the works in the show had to be 12 inches or less in all dimensions. 

Our first friend to arrive was Paul, he brought his daughter Hannah, whom we had never met before. It was a surprise and delight to see them. 

 Here are a few shots of the Galleries as people started to arrive. 

 It’s a good show, at lot of different mediums and techniques; sculpture, painting, photography, drawing, prints, ceramics and collage, interesting things on a small scale, well done. It’s a pleasure to see the show.

 Taybin and Cat arrived and we walked through the show with them.

 I was really surprised to see an old friend, Robin, whom we haven’t seen in about twenty years.  She was with her friend Sherman.  

We were there for about 3 hours and I got to talk to a lot of people,  mostly artists and their friends.  Anja  arrived, saw the show and then we all met at Cafe Reggio on MacDougal Street  to have something to eat.  I had put my camera away and don’t have any more photos after we left the gallery.  

I had to make a short trip into the city today. For about the last 6 months, in the Staten Island Ferry Terminal, there have been two enormous objects covered with blue drop cloths.  Today, one was uncovered,  it is salt water aquarium, filled and populated.  Here are a couple of shots, people were watching the fish with a barrier of construction debris and barricades in the way.

 I hate all the fake sponge and coral but the fish are beautiful. They are large, colorful and some are species I haven’t seen before.  Here’s a very short movie.