The Gem Show as Pilgrimage: Returning to the Stones That Shaped Me
The Gem Show as Pilgrimage: Returning to the Stones That Shaped Me
Every February, something ancient stirs in Tucson.
The desert fills with voices from everywhere. Accents soften the air. Streets hum with familiarity and surprise at the same time. Cars pull up carrying stones that have crossed oceans and lifetimes. Designers, dealers, wanderers, collectors — all arriving with the same quiet knowing:
This is the season — the Tucson Gem, Mineral & Fossil Showcase.
I’ve been coming to the Tucson Gem Shows since I was seventeen. Long enough that my body recognizes the rhythm before my mind does. Long enough that the shows feel less like an event and more like a return — a pilgrimage I don’t question, only follow.
And every year, no matter how much my work evolves, I still begin in the same place.
African Village: Where It All Began
African Village has always been my favorite.
Before the big tents. Before the polished booths and velvet trays. Before diamonds under glass. African Village is where the colors are loud and the beauty is unapologetic. Bright fabrics hang in layers. Masks watch you as you pass. Beaded stools cluster like small altars. And tucked between it all: trade beads, old glass, brass and copper heshi — the materials that taught me how to see.
When I was young, I loved the trade beads most. The old glass with its imperfections and stories. The way the colors weren’t uniform, the way nothing was pretending to be new. I’d bring them home and weave them on a loom, working slowly, learning patience with my hands.
Those beads taught me that adornment could be memory. That jewelry could be a way of holding lineage, not just beauty.
They still do.
African Village is also where I first learned the human side of this world. I loved meeting the dealers — their deep accents, their beautiful eyes, the way the world arrived through them. Conversations didn’t feel transactional; they felt like exchanges of trust. You weren’t just buying stones. You were being welcomed into someone’s story.
That feeling never left me.
The Shows as a Living City
By the time I leave African Village and head toward the other shows, Tucson has already transformed.
For these weeks, the city becomes something else entirely. Hotels turn into marketplaces. Ballrooms become temporary homes for stones that will soon scatter again across the globe. Every designer I know is here. Old friends appear in aisles unexpectedly. New ones are made over trays of gems and shared lunches squeezed between appointments.
It’s one of the most social times of my year — and also one of the quietest internally.
There’s a rhythm to how I move through the shows now. I don’t rush. I don’t try to see everything. I let myself wander. I sit when I need to. I listen more than I speak. I pay attention to what pulls me rather than what’s loud.
That wasn’t always the case.
When I was younger, I thought being “good” at the gem show meant stamina. Seeing everything. Proving you belonged by how long you could last. Now I know better.
Discernment is the real skill.
Slowing Down to See Clearly
These days, I give myself permission to move slowly. I cap my time. I follow curiosity, not obligation. I let myself leave when my senses say it’s time — even if there’s more I could see.
This shift has changed everything.
Instead of being overwhelmed, I feel intimate with the stones I choose. Instead of collecting broadly, I collect precisely. Instead of filling trays, I look for what feels inevitable.
That’s how I’ve been moving through the shows this year.
Some days are about sourcing for specific offerings — stones for PawStones™, crystals for Motoring Stones™, materials that need to be both beautiful and structurally sound. Other days are about connection: checking in with dealers I’ve known for years, meeting new ones whose work carries integrity.
And then there are the days when something stops you completely.
The Moment You Know
Today is one of those days.
I’m heading back out to buy one very special strand of watermelon tourmaline — the kind of strand you don’t see often, and when you do, you feel it immediately. A showstopper. Not because it’s flashy, but because it’s right.
Watermelon tourmaline has always held a particular magic for me. The way it carries contrast within itself — pink and green, heart and grounding, softness and strength. It’s a stone that understands balance without forcing it.
This strand is expensive. Significant. The kind of decision you don’t make casually.
And yet, there’s no anxiety around it.
I already know.
I can see the finished necklaces before they exist. I know exactly where they’ll belong. I know which clients will feel them before they understand why. I know that when something is this clear, it’s not indulgence — it’s alignment.
This is one of the great gifts the gem show has given me over the years: trust in my own knowing.
Living Inside the Shows
One of the quiet blessings of my life is that I live in the middle of it all.
There are many shows I can walk to. I don’t have to cram everything into a few frantic days. I get to stretch the experience across weeks. To wander in the mornings. To return home. To integrate.
For two weeks each year, I’m lost in beads and gems — not in a chaotic way, but in the way you get lost when something feeds you. When time bends. When curiosity replaces urgency.
This pace is part of why the work I create now feels different. It’s not rushed. It’s not reactive. It’s informed by decades of looking, listening, learning.
The stones know that too.
The Shows as Ceremony
I don’t think of the gem shows as sourcing trips anymore.
I think of them as ceremony.
They mark time. They remind me where I come from. They reconnect me to the original reasons I fell in love with this work — not commerce, but connection. Not volume, but meaning.
Every year, the shows strip away what’s unnecessary and leave me with what’s essential. What I want to carry forward. What I’m ready to let go of. What’s worth investing in — financially, creatively, energetically.
This year especially, I feel that clarity sharpening.
The work I’m building now — for resorts, for private clients, for animals, for travelers — all of it is rooted in this relationship with stones that has been quietly forming since I was a teenager wandering African Village with a loom and a pocket full of trade beads.
Nothing about this feels accidental.
Returning With What Matters
When the shows begin to wind down and Tucson exhales, I’ll return to the studio with fewer things than I once did — but better things. Things chosen with care. Things that know where they’re going.
The watermelon tourmaline strand will come with me. So will the conversations. The reunions. The subtle shifts in how I see my work now.
This is the real gift of the gem show: not what you buy, but how it refines you.
And every year, I leave knowing a little more clearly who I am, what I’m building, and what I’m no longer interested in carrying.
That’s a pilgrimage worth making.
