A gem show

So M and I went yesterday to my hometown's annual Gem and Mineral Show.

Most of the jewelry wasn't terribly impressive -- it all loses some effect when you're going "... yeah, I know where you get those, and I know your markup" through half the table. And yes, I saw and recognized all of those items. Next time I'm tempted to add some of that kind of thing to my table to grab the not-inconsiderable potential profit margin, I'll remember how cheap it looks. As a beader, who constantly gets the dismissive comments, I need all the help I can get.

On the other hand -- some of the stuff was incredible. I saw some of the most beautiful ways to set druzies! And geode slices! One artist had actually put tiny twists in the wire to follow every single wave in the material. I bought some rocks -- some sized for wire wrapping will be turning up as pendants in the shop soon, one piece of Utah jasper had such an amazingly dramatic design on one face that I'm currently working on building a wirework necklace around it, and there was this slice of jasper, about 4x4, that I just had to have ...

And then a member of the [name of hometown excised to protect the irritating] Gem and Mineral Society approached us. "You girls need to join our club!" she informed M and I as we waited for the person behind the booth to notice our existence (further note to self: if you make people wait too long for you to come give them prices, they'll put most of the stuff back. I almost bought twelve Utah jaspers and flourites). She gave us a brochure. She told us about the resources in their workshop. Then it all went sour. "We can teach you to make your own jewelry!" she told us in a one-day-you'll-be-big-and-tall tone of overenthusiasm, then conspiratorially added, gesturing at my palmful of minerals: "That's what these are really for, you know."

Five minutes further into her spiel (it seems "make your own jewelry" means "make a cabochon" -- guess what, I know how) M attempted to head her off by pointing out that I'm a jewelry designer (which should not have been difficult to detect; we both make a point of wearing my work and we'd been discussing which face of our rocks would best support a wrapped bail when she interrupted us). It didn't work.

We moved on to the display case section, where there were several more varieties of awesome, including a handmade cab setting that looked like an angelfish, and these absolutely amazing cuff bracelets in beads, wire, stone and polymer clay ... but the experience was slightly soured by being subjected to a monologue from their chainmaille demonstrator who apparently really wanted us to sit and watch her, prompted by M's trying to politely disengage by saying we didn't really have the patience for chainmaille. "Do you know how you learn patience?" she said didactically, apparently seeing a chance to Instruct the Youth of Today. And it went dramatically downhill from there. Because she insisted on telling us. And then telling us that if we weren't patient enough for chainmaille we could skip the wirework demonstration: "That takes patience too!"

So ... yeah. Cool stuff. Incredibly condescending people. I have no conclusions.