I'm a pretty much retired jeweler with about 35 plus years (off and on) designing and making silver and gold jewelry, doing about 50% of my own lapidary work. I worked the art show circuit in my state, and occasionally out of state for about twenty years. I moved to Canada a few years after coming back from Viet Nam, where I made and sold my creations through a local gallery. I returned from Canada as a single parent in about 1977 and moved in with my current wife and had another son, and we (my two sons and wife Ruth) built our home and shop. My wife and I then did the shows and galleries for about 20 years. I had always intended to move to large scale sculpture, and built a new shop, and gathered tools and materials toward that end. By 1997 I had such a long list of custom projects to be accomplished, I stopped doing shows and began completing the list and doing business with a few galleries. I then ran into some serious health issues, which made my dream of becoming a sculptor in large scale pieces a dream forever. Then the metal market went nuts, so I am back to being a rock hound. I now make the occasional jewelry, and sell refurbished lapidary machines, and jewelry stone in slab, rough, and finished cabochons (with a few carvings). Those of you that have access to old Lapidary Journals can find an article about me in the May 1997 (dealers) issue.