I found these rocks on a recent trip to Lake Superior. The red and white center stone is an agate, as are all the rocks to the right of it. The three larger rocks on the left are not agates, just interesting stones, including the piece of basalt lava on the far left, which has several bits of stone that formed in the cavities as it cooled. None of the agates I found are very impressive, but I did enjoy walking the beaches in search of their waxy shine.
As a child growing up in Minnesota, i would comb through the rocks in our long driveway looking for Lake Superior agates, and when I first had the chance to go to Lake Superior, I scoured the beaches for more of those marvelous stones with their stripy eyes. In addition to red and brown agates, I found thomsonite, with its pink circles, yellow chert, jasper, quartz and other rocks that caught my eye. I don't know what happened to the jars of stones I collected, but my love of semi-precious stones remains with me.
I delight in the colors and the patterns found in stones and minerals. Even rough unpolished rocks like the background of this page, which is the floor of a Utah canyon, show the forces of nature at work. Soon after I began creating jewelry, I started looking for ways to reflect and extend the patterns from the rocks into the metal settings. This idea is central to much of my work.
Just as two stones may be similar but never identical, no two Jen Original designs are alike.
My Inspiration
Seeing the design in the stones