Mining New Mexico: A Turquoise Trilogy in Old Cerrillos Part 3, Casa Grande Trading Post!

So, after having read my harrowing tale of a backcountry turquoise trek through the hardscrabble hills of Cerrillos, you've opted instead to undertake a relatively safe day-hike through the handsome and nicely maintained Cerrillos Hills State Park. Completing your ramble, you find that your legs ache pleasantly from the exertion and, listening intently, you can almost hear the sound of a phantom pickaxe ringing against stone, a distant echo from the days when the hills were bustling with hardworking miners, each one eager to find his fortune. Your heart pounded as you peered down into those seemingly endless vertical mineshafts from the safety of the sturdy observation deck but you realize, while making your way back to the car, that your medicine bag is still lacking a little piece of turquoise to remind you of your time in the Land of Enchantment; that your pocket isn't yet heavy with the blue-green stones you thought you might pick up along the trail. Your turquoise fever is still burning and it seems likely that a prompt ice-bath may be the only cure!!! The very cure, in truth, is well-marked on your drive out of the park; simply follow the prominent signs indicating the way towards the Casa Grande Trading Post!




The appearance of heavy antique mining equipment and majestic view of the Devil's Throne Cliff indicate your arrival at Todd and Patricia Brown's crown jewel of my Turquoise Trilogy, and the bona-fide treatment center for every known symptom of the turquoise fever!

photo courtesy Casa Grande Trading Post

Originally from Long Island, NY, Todd Brown has been rambling the hills of Cerrillos for decades now, inspired by the beauty and history of the area. In the early days I think a touch of turquoise fever must have kept him on the lookout for any hint of color among the long-abandoned mine sites, and as he describes it, one day he found what he was looking for:

Thirty-five years ago, I was walking in a New Mexico snowstorm and was taking the long way home around Grand Central Mountain in the Cerrillos Mining District. I came across a vein of brilliant green stone and decided to stop and work off some of the vein. I worked for 15 minutes and got about 2 lbs of rough turquoise, then covered it up and headed for home. 35 years later still dreaming of the green turquoise I had found that day, I decided to file for a mining claim with the Bureau of Land Management on that same spot.

Today, his mine, officially registered as the "Little Chalchihuitl", is perhaps the most actively worked mine in the area. With the help of family and friends, Todd continues to coax brilliant chunks of genuine Cerrillos turquoise, prized for its unique greenish hue (imparted by the iron content of the surrounding soil), from the rock walls of his claim.

Todd and Patricia at the "Little Chalchihuitl" photo courtesy Casa Grande Trading Post

Back at the Trading Post, Todd and Patricia choose the finest pieces to cut, polish and set in sterling silver; a wide range of their handiwork is available, from earrings and pendants to money clips and keychains, all set with that coveted natural Cerrillos turquoise!


photo courtesy Casa Grande Trading Post


If an uncut, unpolished pocket piece is more your style, you can dig for your treasure in one of several small boxes brimming with rough turquoise direct from the Little Chalchihuitl; prices are reasonable, ranging from six dollars for quarter-sized chunks, on up. I picked up two nice six dollar pieces, and a fine silver-dollar sized specimen from the eight dollar box, all richly colored and guaranteed to be completely natural: unstabilized with no color enhancements, just the way nature made it!

My purchases and signed certificate of authenticity.

Just as you finish picking out your turquoise pieces, either rough or set into finely-crafted jewelry, you take in a wider view of the shop and realize that your shopping adventure is far from over!



All around you are artifacts from the days of old, skulls and antlers, colorful mineral specimens (not just turquoise!) and all manner of handmade creations; of the latter category I noted lovely walking sticks crafted from lengths of Cholla cactus skeleton, decoratively painted hubcaps, locally produced pueblo pottery, plaques mounted with samples of old barbed wire, little pouches sewn from swatches of old pendleton blankets, turquoise-covered skulls, and so much more.



If artifacts are your thing, perhaps you'll be interested in Civil War-era bullets, antique bottles, old ceramic crucibles left over from ore-refining and smelting operations in the area, railroad tie date nails (to indicate when the track was laid) or actual old documents and checks pertaining to the daily transactions common to turn-of-the-century New Mexico businesses. Oh, and I know you'll love (carefully!) picking through the labeled boxes containing segments of authentic antique barbed-wire!





In addition to the Cerrillos turquoise, Todd has rounded out his offerings with abundant samples of turquoise from other mines as well, including the well-known clear blue turquoise from the Sleeping Beauty mine in Arizona:


(I want to go back for a bag of that turquoise powder!)

Sleeping Beauty is a large-scale commercial mine that does things a little differently from Todd. Where Todd may spend days or weeks carefully teasing a precious vein of color by hand out from the drab matrix stone around it, the folks at Sleeping Beauty literally blast away huge portions of mountainside and later sift through the rubble for pieces of turquoise. The following video is pretty interesting; a good example of turquoise mining on a large scale where the mineral is relatively abundant in the surrounding rock.




An abundance of other mineral specimens are offered in the Trading Post as well. Perhaps your collection is lacking a fine, colorful specimen of Peacock Chalcopyrite, New Mexico Garnet, or a jumbo, clear sheet of Mica? Can't make it down south to White Sands on this trip to New Mexico? Don't worry, Todd's got you covered!






I'm quite certain at this point you will have settled into the cheerful and charming atmosphere of Casa Grande sufficiently that you'll begin to think "Wow! I could just live in this place!" In fact, Todd and his wife do; they built the 28 room adobe casa by hand and raised their six kids there as well, one of whom very kindly tolerated my awe-struck bumbling around the shop photographing everything in sight on the afternoon of my visit! Once you've taken in all there is to see (is that even possible?) in the shop portion of the Casa Grande, be sure to request admission to the mining museum; at two dollars a person, you are virtually guaranteed at least another hour or two of visual and educational delights!

Your host, Todd Brown, welcomes you! photo courtesy Casa Grande Trading Post.

Step through the gate and walk back in time!

photo courtesy Casa Grande Trading Post


See photos of a younger, bearded, ponytailed Todd scouring the hills for what would eventually be known as Little Chalchihuitl! Pore over maps indicating the locations of mine sites and peruse articles on the history of the area! See a real vein of Cerrillos turquoise just as it is found in the rock!



A long glass display case houses collections of pottery and artifacts dating from the time when indigenous people worked Mt Chalchihuitl for the precious blue stone:





Another case is full of colorful mineral specimens and samples of turquoise from many different mines:



Cross the room and learn about the connection between Tiffany's department store and a Cerrillos turquoise mine!

This display features a cloth bag and tins of genuine old nuggets from the American Turquoise Company mine, which sold almost all of its robins egg blue stones to the world-famous Tiffany department store in NY after their chief gemologist, George F. Kunz, declared certain shades of turquoise (not coincidentally, the specific and well-known shade of blue unique to Tiffany gift boxes, aka "Tiffany Blue") to be gem-quality stones worthy of inclusion in the finest jewelry.

The Mine's chief operator, James P. McNulty, who mined much of the turquoise himself, shipped cigar boxes packed with the precious stones back east where they were worked into chic pieces of Tiffany jewelry.

Afternoon sunlight streams through the colorful glass insulators that line the windows, administering a healthy dose of light and color therapy quite certain to boost your spirits even further in this bright, happy place!





Old artifacts from mining operations around Cerrillos abound:



Many pieces of equipment are labeled and explained, though Todd welcomes further inquiries if you'd like to know more. He has crafted some wonderful displays depicting the earliest Native miners in the hills:


Note the notched logs that were dropped into the shafts and used as stairways between the levels.

This old timer seems to have had his fill of turquoise and is trying his luck with gold!



An old ore cart piled high with antlers shed in the hills by the resident mule deer population:



Don't forget to look up! An old, exquisitely beaded glove is among the many treasures hanging from the rafters!



I was delighted to see this old shelf mushroom with images of Mount Rainier painted on it (not exactly local, but thats ok!). I should probably post this picture on my Mushroom Shelf Tutorial page!



Now, lest you fear I've herein revealed all of the most remarkable points of interest throughout the trading post and museum, fear not! The wonders that await you at Todd and Patricia Brown's Casa Grande Trading Post and Mining Museum are sufficient to fill volumes; my photographs and brief descriptions barely scratch the surface of what you will find there in old Cerrillos! Oh, and did I mention that the Browns also run a petting zoo?



When you bring your treasures up to the cash register, be sure to ask for a two dollar bag of food for the petting zoo... your Casa Grande adventure continues just outside the shop, where goats, a llama, turkey, fancy chickens, and pigeons come right up at the sight of the feed bag!

A day in the Cerrillos Hills State Park is certainly a worthwhile adventure, but get an early start and make sure to plan on spending a few hours at the Casa Grande Trading Post; I sure did, and I probably could have spent a few hours more! In editing the photos for this post, I kept noticing things I hadn't noticed in person; thats the beauty of of the Casa Grande, and indeed of the Cerrillos hills as well: there is so much to see that you'll surely need a second visit to take it all in! Thanks so much for joining me on this Turquoise Trilogy! Before long, I will be embarking on a mining adventure of a different sort, and will introduce you to another local FinderMaker... I'll see you then!

Mining New Mexico: A Turquoise Trilogy in Old Cerrillos, Part Two!

When last we met, I had just returned from a vigorous ramble through the Cerrillos Hills State Park where my turquoise fever, instead of subsiding, became rather more advanced, and I determined that I might like to reconnoiter a portion of the public land that lies just north of the park boundaries to see what I might see.

A mysterious, anonymous reader left me a comment shortly after I published Part 1 of this trilogy, warning that "individual mining claims have been legally registered across the landscape and are worked and fiercely protected on that land." Alas, the warning was delivered well after the completion of my backcountry adventure, though I was aware ahead of time that there might be active mining claims in the area and, accordingly, packed in only a camera, a honeycrisp apple, and plenty of water in place of the pickaxe, black powder, and shovel that I might otherwise have preferred to convey into the "forbidden zone."

Seriously, though, it is my understanding that BLM land may generally be used responsibly by the public for purposes of hiking and similar low-impact leisure activities; tracts may be registered for purposes of mineral exploration, however, and anyone that goes into the area seemingly intent on working a miner's legal claim might well face the wrath of said miner. While I might have held out hope that a little chunk of color might reveal itself from the drab tailings of some old, disused shaft, I certainly would not have endeavored to poke around any area appearing to be actively worked, and neither should you; it's wrong, and it simply isn't worth the risk.



My trusty, dusty old Palladium boots served me well through the journey, protecting my ankles from the numerous low-growing cacti that guard the hills. I will confess, however, that those boots are on the heavy side, and the long trudge through deep, sandy gravel up the creekbed (we call them arroyos around here) into the BLM land that was my destination left me rather in need of an extended period of rest, during which time I found that previously mentioned honeycrisp apple to be a welcome, if rather insubstantial, refreshment. Reasonably revived, I commenced to work my way east towards the front (south) side of Grand Central Mountain, encountering along the way a great number of lovely cholla cactus skeletons, one of which I might like to have collected had I not been required to haul it back out via that long, burdensome arroyo:



I was not long in happening upon some old mine sites. A few had been capped and marked by the New Mexico Abandoned Mine Land Bureau:







And not too far from those, this:



A very uncapped, unmarked vertical mine shaft. I suppose this is what I hoped I might see out here, and yet, faced suddenly with that gaping, black, seemingly endless pit, I began to question the wisdom of my bounding alone out into this remote and slightly scary tract of land. That shaft was no joke; if I had attempted to peer in and lost my footing in that loose dirt I would certainly have gone down far, fast and hard, irreversibly concluding, I do believe, my time on this earth. Notably rattled, I paused long enough to snap a few photographs and then continued on my way.

Continuing along the sunny south-facing side of Grand Central Mountain, a bright-white object concealed in the dry grass caught my eye:



Do you see it there? My mood, rather darkened by my encounter with the gloomy pit, brightened considerably as I approached the white object, which revealed itself to be a lovely shed mule deer antler!



I have never before found a shed antler, and determined that this one was well worth hauling along with me for the duration of my ramble! My prize safely crammed into my backpack, I rounded the eastern slope of the mountain, and beheld in the distance a landmark I dearly hoped I might catch a glimpse of: the famed Mount Chalchihuitl.



The NM Office of the State Historian describes mount Chalchihuitl thusly:

...the largest known prehistoric turquoise mine in North America, with turquoise artifacts found from the site dating from around 1000 AD. Native miners excavated thousands of tons of waste rock at Mt. Chalchihuitl before Spanish invasion in the 16th century. Archeologists have recovered cultural materials at the site that confirm that this prehistoric mining occurred, including grooved stone axes, mauls, picks, hand-held hammers, anvils, and lapidary stones, mostly made of igneous rock. Pieces of pottery found at the side indicate that the greatest periods of activity at the mine were 1000-1150 and 1300-1600 AD. The name “Chalchihuitl” is a Nahua word derived from the word “xui,” meaning blue. Nahuatl is a group of related languages that was spoken by the Aztecs, and has been spoken in central Mexico since the 7th century AD. The word “chalchihuitl” is used to refer to other green stones such as emeralds and jade, and has a connotation of preciousness. Southwestern peoples have valued opaque, blue-green turquoise stones for trade, ornamentation, and ceremonial use for thousands of years. These stones appear in Navajo, Zuni, and Hopi creation myths.

This short video provides a little more information about the history of the mine at Mount Chalchihuitl:



Mount Chalchihuitl itself and much of the land surrounding it is currently privately owned. I didn't dare go near it; I was perfectly content to have such a nice vantage point from my perch on the side of old Grand Central! Barely a stone's throw from that vantage point, I stumbled upon a disturbed area of the mountainside that, upon closer inspection, revealed a tunnel leading directly into the mountain.



I remembered reading about a tunnel that had been dug deep into Grand Central Mountain in the late 1880's, and wondered if this could be it.



There was a gate preventing entry, and for good reason; check out that warning sign:



That's serious stuff, and not to be ignored! The view from between the bars:



Now the fact is I had gotten a rather late start on my day, and I had stopped to investigate enough little things here and there that by the time I rounded the north side of the mountain, it was already getting a tad late for my taste, especially considering we had just turned back our clocks an hour for the winter making the afternoon that much shorter. Its too bad, because old maps I had been studying had revealed a few disturbed areas of land on the far side of the mountain that had been minor sites of turquoise exploration before the turn of the century that I was hoping to get a look at. It didn't take long to find them; the land is easily traversed, and landmarks I had read about or seen on maps were easy to spot in person. Scrambling up from a gully I looked out towards where those sites should be and caught my first glimpse of actual...



TURQUOISE!!!!!! Not quite the turquoise the area is known for, but a fun and very unexpected find nevertheless! There were a few old mine sites in that vicinity, different from the previous ones I had seen in that these were sort of wide pits that had become overgrown with vegetation:



Closer inspection revealed that within the pit, some lucky miner must have followed a vein rather deeply into the rock:



Rather deeply indeed!



Climbing back out... could it be???



TURQUOISE???? The color sure was pretty, but it appeared to just be a hair-thin crust of color on the very surface of the rock; if it was turquoise it surely wasn't worth chipping off of the rock, and I didn't have any tools, anyhow. Good thing I was able to collect that nicely colored specimen on my camera!



Evidence of a 1960's "pit party" reminded me that I was awfully thirsty, and my water supply was getting low; it was time to leave the backcountry.



I had seen more interesting things than I had expected to see, found an antler, didn't get bit by a rattlesnake, fall down a mineshaft, or get chased off at gunpoint by a fiercely protective miner, so I considered my Cerrillos Hills backcountry ramble a real success. I can't say I plan on returning; I feel pretty fortunate to have emerged from that little adventure with my life, so I'm glad to have captured some of it on film, and I'm pleased as punch to be here to share it with you! Thanks for joining me, and don't forget... this is a trilogy! In Part 3, I'll introduce you to someone who has been finding stuff in these hills for years, and makes some truly extraordinary creations... a real FinderMaker!

Mining New Mexico: A Turquoise Trilogy in Old Cerrillos, Part One!

Friends, I hope you can forgive my extended absence from the old FinderMaker forum; my existence has been rather untethered of late, and crafting doesn't come easily when one's materials and tools are boxed up and buried in a storage unit. It dawned on me recently that, although I may not be able to work on my own projects as readily as I had become accustomed to doing, it may be gratifying in the meantime to focus some attention on folks who truly embody the FinderMaker spirit of "finding things and making them into other, better things!"


And so I find myself now, for an indeterminate amount of time, in old Santa Fe, New Mexico. The nights are chilly, and smoke from burning piñon logs that warm the cozy adobe casitas drifts from chimneys and perfumes the air. In the picturesque downtown Plaza, visitors from around the globe embrace the attitude of the Old West and amble about in cowboy hats and boots; they'll make a point of strolling along a deep stretch of covered sidewalk in front of the Palace of the Governors, where Native peoples from the surrounding pueblos spread out their handicrafts on colorful blankets. You'll be hard pressed to board the plane back home without a beautiful souvenir of your stay in the "city different": perhaps a delicate pot from Acoma, or a bold Navajo bracelet accented with turquoise nuggets? It is this latter material that has captivated my attention of late; indeed, I fear I have come down with an acute case of turquoise fever!




Now, I've always heeded the old adage "Feed a cold, starve a fever," but this is one fever that may be fed with gusto, whether in the shops of Santa Fe, or a bit further afield, in the hills of nearby Cerrillos. Hoping a vigorous desert ramble might cool my fever, I headed for the hills. Driving south out of Santa Fe, I exited I-25 and merged onto NM 14, the Turquoise Trail National Scenic Byway, which passes through a number of small, historic mining towns and scenic areas as it winds south towards Albuquerque. Be sure to keep an eye out on your right for a cluster of low but unmistakeable hills; within these hills are numerous abandoned mines, a few active ones, and Mount Chalchihuitl, the site of the most extensively worked prehistoric turquoise mine in North America!




Not far past those hills is an exit for the town of Cerrillos; hold on to your hats when you make that turn because pardner, you are about to enter the true Old West! The town itself consists of but a few dusty roads and a main street with a row of storefronts that look as though they could be the set for a Western movie; in fact, several have been filmed there. Friendly locals and old timers share a drink and swap yarns outside of Mary's Bar, prominent signs will point the way to the Casa Grande Trading Post (more about that later!), and the local dogs will trot along beside your automobile as you make your way towards the Cerrillos Hills State Park. The beginning of the park is marked by an information and pay station, where a mere five dollars secures your access to the area. Here I could go to great lengths to explain the history of mining in the area, how the park was created, and so forth, but there is an excellent website dedicated to addressing these and many other related topics, and so I will direct you to the Cerrillos Hills State Park site, where the embers of your interest in the subjects of mining and turquoise may be stoked to a veritable conflagration!




Rocky but well-defined trails wind through the hills and reveal evidence of the late 1800s mining rush: gouges and vertical shafts in the earth piled all around with the excavated waste rock.




Many of the shafts are deep enough to have warranted safety precautions: attractive observation decks allow visitors to get a bird's eye view, while sturdy steel mesh covers the opening, preventing anyone from accidentally (or otherwise) going overboard!






Historical information is posted at each of the significant mine sites:






See a whole bunch of historic photos of early mining operations in the hills here.

When is a stump more than just a stump?




When it reveals a story about the area's past! When miners flocked to the Cerrillos hills mining district in the late 1800s to find their fortunes, they needed firewood and timber to brace mine shafts; the juniper and piñon trees that dot the hillsides filled that need, and today you can still see many of the stumps of those trees with axe cuts and saw marks where wood was harvested over a hundred years ago! The park has several unobtrusive signs pointing out those interesting things that the casual hiker might otherwise miss.

Rambling my way towards the back of the park, I crested a hill and beheld one mammoth of a hill off in the distance:




That is what the miners called "Grand Central Mountain" on account of its stature and location in the mining district. Although the Cerrillos Hills State Park encompasses a large tract of the original district, Grand Central Mountain itself, which lies just outside of the park's northern boundry, was the site of several mining operations; out beyond Grand Central Mountain are more hills, and even more old mine sites!




By the end of my day exploring the park, I'm afraid my turquoise fever had advanced considerably. I spent the evening poring over the park's website, eager to find out as much as possible about the area's history and the locations of the mines. Many of the mine claims within the park were struck in pursuit of silver, gold, lead, copper, iron, and coal; little gold was actually discovered, but mine operators often exaggerated its existence to investors back East in order to secure funding to expand operations. Many of the historic turquoise sites are actually located in the hills out beyond the park boundaries. Curious to find out the ownership status of the land beyond the park, I pulled up a detailed Bureau of Land Management (BLM) map, and was surprised by what I found:




While a good portion of area around the old turquoise mines is privately owned, the areas overlaid in transparent yellow (above) are actually public (BLM) land, and that includes much of good old Grand Central Mountain! Now I'd be lying if I said that part of my intended cure for Turquoise fever didn't include finding a few bits of that lovely stone out in the field, but significant effort went into preserving the land and remaining sites within the Cerrillos Hills State Park; removing anything from the park undermines those preservation efforts, so "rockhounding" anywhere within the park must be strictly avoided. Likewise with straying off the trails... it damages the ecosystem and can alter the appearance of the area. I stayed up half the night plotting how I might access the BLM land without going through the park or overtly trespassing on private property, and determined that I might do so by following a dry creekbed that runs well outside of the park boundaries and ends up within the BLM land surrounding Grand Central Mountain. I decided that my goal for the following day would be to hike entirely around the mountain, avoiding the few privately owned sectors, while hopefully encountering some interesting scenery (and maybe a few bits of that mythical blue stone!) along the way. My path is highlighted with red dots in the map above.

Did I make it into the backcountry? Did I fall into a mineshaft? Did I even find a mineshaft??? I hope you will stick around for part two of the Turquoise Trilogy!

Inspired by Sigmar Polke: Uranium Glass Collection

Sorting and packing continues here at FinderMaker manor, and I've just unearthed some more items that were inspired by a recently deceased and very influential artist.

Many years ago I was flipping through a coffee table book featuring interior photographs of several famous artist's homes, and something I saw in a photograph of German artist Sigmar Polke's home caught my attention. It was a tray loaded with oddly-colored glass objects that a caption identified as belonging to Polke's collection of "canary glass".

I did some research on canary glass, and found that it is a term sometimes used to describe glassware that has been pigmented with depleted uranium oxide; other commonly used terms include "uranium glass" and "vaseline glass". The uranium pigment, though mostly depleted of it's radioactivity, remains somewhat radioactive, and reacts with ultraviolet light in such a way that it has a barely perceptible luminous quality in normal light, and positively glows a bright yellow-green under a strong u.v. or "black" light.

Sigmar Polke was something of a modern day alchemist, incorporating unusual materials (fruit and vegetable juices, silver oxide and other reactive chemicals, crushed meteorites...), into his paintings, and even did a photographic series in which sensitized plates were exposed to the emissions of radioactive minerals. I became quite fascinated by that collection of strange radioactive glass, and soon began to notice pieces at estate sales and antique stores. If a piece was cheap enough, I bought it, and eventually amassed a decent collection of the stuff. Sadly, my collection suffered a great blow when, in preparation for our move from Oakland to Los Angeles, part of my uranium glass display case came loose and allowed about a third of my collection to spill out onto the floor and shatter.

Here are some pieces from the collection that have been wrapped up and stored away for several years. I will wrap them back up now, and perhaps they will be stored away for several more.



Sigmar Polke passed away on June 10th at the age of 69. Thank you for sparking my interest in that glowing green glass, Mr. Polke.

If anyone happens to know anything about that book, i'd love to know the title and author so I can look it up-- I haven't been able to locate it.

Inspired by Louise Bourgeois

Getting ready to move is really stressful; I've done it alot over the past several years and I can't say it gets any easier over time. Occasionally I'm pleasantly surprised while I'm sorting through stuff and packing; finding this stack of screenprints I did in 2002 was one of those pleasant surprises.

I really like Louise Bourgeois' artwork, and find her large-scale installations (the "Cells") to be especially compelling. Her passing on May 31st at the age of 98 was a great loss to the art world, but my what a wonderful and inspiring body of work she created during her lifetime! 12 years ago or thereabouts I came across an image of this watercolor she had done depicting various clippers she found around her home and studio:



I was immediately inspired to try my own version using images of surgical instruments taken from a turn-of-the-century surgical supply catalog. I did several hand-drawn and colored versions before I had access to screenprinting equipment; I was excited to finally do a run of screenprints based on one of my favorite layouts during a screenprinting course at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. These are 3-color prints: 2 shades of red, and black, printed on a cream colored acid-free paper.





I always just called them my "Tribute to Louise Bourgeois" --not a very original title, and certainly not a worthy tribute to such a grand artist, but these images occupied my mind and time considerably for a period, and I'm glad to have been given the opportunity to revisit and share them. Thank you, Louise Bourgeois!!!

Medicine Bags!

I recently acquired two super soft, buttery buckskin hides and have been having a grand time sewing medicine bags! I do sew them on a machine, but since every piece of each bag is cut by hand from the hide, they end up taking a good bit of time to make from start to finish. I have 15 so far; these are meant to be worn around the neck, and I have been assembling a nice cache of beads, metal cones, horsehair and the like to add to each bag along with a strip of intricate beadwork that will be stitched directly onto the face of each bag!

Eventually these will go into my FinderMaker shop, along with mushroom shelves and all sorts of other curious objects and handmade treasures! I believe I will have to put this project on hold very soon though, as I am preparing for a big move at the end of August. We are trying to decide between New York City (we lived there before, in Manhattan, but would be in Brooklyn this time around) or Santa Fe (a new adventure, though I did spend some of my childhood in Albuquerque). The seemingly unavoidable threat of bedbugs is making the NY area seem like a rather frightening option, but Santa Fe is quite distant, and I am tiring of stressful cross-country moves. Those concerns aside, both places have much to offer, and I am looking forward to the changes that are in store! I would certainly welcome any opinions or insight on either option from my dear beloved readers!