Jewelry & Beading

A trip to Tucson!

by Cyndi on February 22nd, 2008

Since I didn’t go to Tucson this year, I enlisted the aid of a spy…my good friend Wendy Van Camp! Wendy (whose artist profile you can read here) went to Tucson as a first timer, and I asked her for her impressions. If you’ve never been, but plan to some day, maybe some of what Wendy shares will help you :-)
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Wendy’s tool purchases!

I am back after a long eight days in Tucson, AZ. I was warned to wear comfortable shoes and clothing for the gem shows. I’m glad that I did, since I ended up on my feet and walking pretty much every day that I was there. I have been working out five days a week doing an hour of cardio since Christmas to prepare myself for the trip and it worked. I was tired at the end of each day, but not drop dead exhausted.

My favorite shows were: Holidome, Gem Mall, Tucson Electric Park, Rio in Motion and ToBeadTrueBlue. I attended several more of the shows during my week’s stay, trying to do two shows a day when I could, but these were the ones that I felt had the best offerings for me. I found stones that I haven’t seen for years at my local stone sources and everything I found was of a higher quality which pleased me greatly.

All of the gem shows were huge in size and took many hours to sort through. The selection was almost bewildering in scope, yet exciting at the same time. I found the most lovely blue peruvian opals, nephrite jade in great shapes and chips of tourmalated quartz and prehenite of a better quality than I normally would expect in a chip. I also found a new supplier of glass animal beads and bought around 20 new shapes which I’m sure are going to delight my college student customers this spring.

For me, the most exciting aspect of my journey was that I bought many new tools, the main ones being a Foredom Flexshaft, specialty hammers and a new micro-torch. The prices were so fantastic and the fact that I didn’t have to pay shipping on the heavier items made buying these tools impossible to resist.

I attended a free seminar on how to use a Foredom Flexshaft at the Tucson Electric Park Learning Center. The demonstrator was Tony Aldridge. He explained how to take care of your flexshaft and demonstrated several of the attachments that go with it including the hammer handpiece and the cutter of a jumpringer. I loved the demonstration on using a graver’s block and the hammer handpiece together to create a bezel around a stone in one minute.

What was most interesting was to meet the people behind many of the companies that I have only known via their websites or on email lists. At ToBeadTrueBlue, I had the pleasure to meet Spider of SpiderChain in person. She had the most beautiful assortment of chainmaile jewelry on display at her table along with her famous chainmaile DVDs for sale. Parawire, a company known for their anodized copper and a favorite source of wire for chainmailers was at ToBeadTrueBlue as well, set up next to the inventor of the “Chain Sta” tool. The inventor was taking wholesale orders of his tool and doing a complete demonstration of it and right next to him, Parawire was licensed to sell singles of the tool. They had a team thing going on between their two tables which was delightful to watch. At TucsonElectric Park, I was able to meet the famous toolmaker of Tools by Milland and see demonstrations of their unique bracelet formers and textured hammers. It was well worth the return to that show a second day just to have time to speak with them.

Unfortunately, I had not scheduled to take any of the classes at Rio in Motion. This is my one regret of the trip, that I did not partake in moreof the classes and seminars that were offered by the various gem shows. Next time that I go to Tucson, I think that this will be a higher priority to me than merely shopping for stones and tools.

I think that Tucson is going to be on my schedule at least every other year, if nothing else for the classes and the fun getaway it offers!

–
Wendy Van Camp
Indigoskye Bead Fashions

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