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About
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While there are many places that can be accessed by land, some of the most dramatic rocks come from islands offshore that provide only limited access. The seaward side of an island gets the most pounding by the waves and yields the best-shaped, most finely tumbled rocks. To get to these islands, we take the larger boat and tow a smaller one, which we use to go ashore. Watching the tides and the wave intervals, we make our way to land dodging ledges and hidden rocks just below the surface. While this is our most treacherous collecting, it is often our most rewarding.
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My wife and I collect the entire length of the Maine coast. The best time to collect is after a big storm when the rocks are turned over and new material brought up. We like to follow the tide as it ebbs because wet rocks show off their contrasting colors in sharper detail and give a clearer impression of how the rock will look once I polish it. This particular beach provides smaller rocks that I use for jewelry pieces, clocks, handles and knobs. Of all the rocks you see here, only a few will have the right combination of shape, design, and color while being free of fracture lines and severe pitting.
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A tidal pool captured by the rocks as the tide recedes hosts an algae forest struggling for survival until the tide returns. These are delicate eco-systems and nothing but pictures should be taken from them.
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This is our home when we attend our shows. This was at the WOODSTOCK Show in New Paltz, NY.
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The most exhausting part of this job is reconstructing this hard-sided booth for each show and dismantling it afterwards, but we feel the result is worth the extra effort.
CHECK THIS OUT: A 360 degree panoramic of our studio. Requires QUICKTIME plugin. See it
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So, you want to be a rock star? Believe me, it's not easy, it's a grind... These are the diamond belt polishers I've built to polish the stones. The final step,out of view, is a hard felt wheel which has a mixture of metal oxides I have formulated to complete the polish process.
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Linda is enjoying a sunny afternoon collecting stones from an island which has been entirely metamorphosed. This is one of the islands which yields stones for our natural stone products. Notice the extensive bedrock. The stones here have very short lives as the waves lift the stones and 'slam' them onto this massive slab and break them repeatedly until they are reduced to sand. This is not a good island to collect from after a recent storm because the stones need a period of gentler seas to smooth and shape them.
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I LOVE MY JOB! This is a sight Linda and I frequently find after a storm. The rough seas dislodge sea vegetation and the waves deliver it to the shores in beautiful arrangements which would rival those of an accomplished florist.
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This beautiful rose had just opened to offer its pollen to any passing bee in the struggle for survival at the edge of the pounding sea.
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Maine's most recognized stone: 'Lucky Stone'.
If your stone has an unbroken ring formed by a vein of some other mineral, it is considered a lucky stone. Also referred to as a wishing stone, this is an internationally recognized phenomenon, and the coast of Maine is noted for an abundance of this geological activity.
A lucky stone is formed when a vein of a mineral or combination of minerals is deposited in the cracks of base rock. This base rock later breaks into smaller pieces that the sea relentlessly tumbles in a process called mechanical weathering, resulting in a physical change only. This process produces a stone with a mineral vein completely circling it. The most rare and popular is a stone with multiple veins or with veins that form a cross.
There are three distinct geological activities that build veins in rocks. The first occurs when water dissolves a mineral and slowly deposits it into the cracks of a base rock below. The second and most dramatic is hydrothermal activity in which water comes in contact with magma, or existing water is released from magma, and the super-heated water rushes to the surface carrying dissolved ions of minerals upward to be deposited in the cracks of base rock above. This is considered a fissure vein and is also responsible for valuable ore deposition in some veins. The third occurs when molten magma is squeezed upward into existing or newly created cracks of the existing base rock above.
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