Featured Artists, Marketing Tips, Blog Tips, and Random Musings by Finding Charm: Handmade Artist: Rasmussen Gems

Sunday, January 20, 2013

Handmade Artist: Rasmussen Gems

For me, John at Rasmussen Gems has been able to do what I want to do. Work hard while you can and then after that retire and do what you love. John started his craft early studying geology. He even taught it for 10 years. Then he went into the emergency medicine field until he retired. In his retirement he picked up his love of stones and minerals like he never left. I'm sure he never really left 100% anyway, but it does add some drama to the story, right? Anyway, John the lapidary and Debora, his wife and jeweler now work together making and selling beautiful stones and beaded jewelry. In addition to lapidary and jewelry making, John also does metal work in the jewelry designs.

Rasmussen Gems also provides services that I do not often find in the handmade community. He can provide jewelry repair services. He is well trained from attending the International Gem Society, Gemological Institute of America, and Penn Foster Career School to learn jewelry design and repair.

Rasmussen Gems also provides gem identification and appraisal services. Gems can be hard to determine - at least for me. Especially the real from the fake or because gems are naturally occurring, the color variants can maybe lead to a different stone in particular. I've run into that a couple of times. I'll think a stone is one gem, but in fact, it's something else.