Shine on
Gem and Mineral Club celebrates 70 years of rocking in Durango

There’s a little turquoise building growing out of the grass across from the high school here in Durango. It’s weathered and old, looking to be part of the landscape just like the creek that flows behind it. The building has been here for a century, and most of us have taken it for granite, but not the kind folk who’ve worked inside for 70 years: the members of the Four Corners Gem and Mineral Club.

Human beings have been decorating themselves with pretty rocks for eons; we’re no more complex than birds who bedazzle their nests with colorful pieces of stone and trash just to lure in mates. We pick up pretty rocks while we hike along for no other reason than to put them in our pockets; we hang crystals from the ceiling in chandeliers so they’ll paint our walls with rainbows; and when we find someone we love and want to spend our lives with until we’re buried in the earth, we give him or her a shiny rock mounted on a metallic ring. Human beings are obsessed with rocks, so much so that even small towns like Durango have decades-old clubs dedicated to the love of all things lapidary. Some might say it’s a little strange, and to that, I’d say, “of quartz it is, but it’s still pretty coal.”

The “Club,” as it’s called on its website, moved into its turquoise building in 1947, and the paint must be intentional given the Southwest locale. The Club itself is a bona fide nonprofit organization with around 200 members 

(about two-thirds of whom are locals). This year, they’re going all-out to celebrate their 70th anniversary by putting on the largest gem and mineral show in the Club’s history. If you’re interested, here’s some information pyrited from the Club’s website: The 2017 Gem Show will be from 10 a.m. – 6 p.m. July 7-9 at the La Plata County Fairgrounds and will include more than 60 dealers from across the United States. Admission is free, and many of the vendors will be offering rock-bottom prices during the show.

As a side note, I know the puns up to this point have been a little gratuitous, but if you found them annoying, you’ll need to strap in because things are gunna get rocky: when it comes to puns in an article about rocks, it’s all ore nothing. Anyway, lets continue...

Jama Crawford is one of the Club’s shop stewards, but she’s also an instructor and an artist. She makes wonderful pieces of jewelry, and when I interviewed her for this article, she was wearing one wrought from silver and stone that looked downright professional. I offered my compliments, and with a smile, she touched her necklace and said, “modern fashion trends are favoring wearable art.” I thought about her words as she led me into her shop, and they seemed to make sense. From what I’ve seen, jewelry is taking a turn toward the organic; more and more of the galleries around town are displaying in their cases polished stone set in silver as opposed to cut gems dangling from traditional chains. And in fact, one of our more prominent galleries, Diane West Jewelry and Art, sells wearable art made by a few of the Club’s members.

But if I’m being honest, I was impressed most by the Club’s shop itself – if all dogs go to heaven, this is where rock hounds go when they die. The shop has everything,

from rows of jeweler’s benches to a soldering station. There’re enamel kilns and slab saws and diamond-coated rock blades that can slice through petrified wood as if it were still living; there’re polishers and sanders and piles of donated rocks for people who can’t bring their own. They even have shirts that say “We lick rocks,” and every bit of it is available to Club members, which is pretty impressive given that the annual membership fee is only $24.

Even if you don’t want to be a member (geode forbid shelling out a whole 24 bucks), the Club offers quite a bit to the general public. If you’re interested, just go to www.durangorocks.org and click on the “classes” link at the top of the page. Club members teach all sorts of rockish (totally a word) skills, ranging from stone-cutting to wire-wrapping to enamel work. And best of all, they offer field trips for grownups. They’re listed on the website, but you’ll need to sign up at the shop (2351 North Main) during regular business hours. Once you do, you can go out into the field and hunt for amethyst or fossils, all the while being guided by a professional.

Frankly, that’s why the Four Corners Gem and Mineral Club deserves support and features such as this article. According to Crawford, the Club is really just “a community of artists and geologists,” and as an organization, it’s “a terrific resource that should be continued.”

Why?

Well, it’s sedimentary, my dear. This Club isn’t here to make a profit, but rather, they strive to share their skills and love of wearable art with the world. They’re here to teach us about the geology that lives all around us, and since they’ve been doing it for 70 years, I’d say they’re doing something right.