THE ROAD TO RAW BEAUTY ARTICLE CHELSEA LYN AGRO | PHOTOGRAPHY PAMELA DUNN-PARRISH
C
larity, color, cut, carat—these four C words
brightly lit glass counters, and its walls are
meant little to me as a single woman. They
shimmering—copper, silver, the rugged edges
didn’t shine or sparkle or mesmerize me the way
and crystals of geodes having taken their
the movies or fancy ring shops always let on.
places like crowns on a shelf. There are bags of
I hadn’t known the real, raw beauty of a stone
material waiting to be sifted through, a gambler
until I held an uncut sapphire in my hand. Its
or adventurer’s dream come true.
shape and color—the way it looked in the sun or
The backyard is a maze of tables, troughs, and
in a room, always different with each turn of it in
a running water flume. This is the place where
between my fingers—was stunning.
the washing and setting yourself up for success
As a married woman, two of those four C
will take place. First, the material will need to be
words have since graduated their way into my
set into a screening pan, then rinsed, then stirred
vocabulary when engaging in ring talk—cut
and shifted appropriately so, and if all is done cor-
and color. Or maybe it’s colour—the embel-
rectly, your fortune of sapphires will end up at the
lished version, for emphasis when describing
bottom of your pan and preferably in the middle.
the object of our affection, like Woody Allen’s
The next tricky step is flipping the pan onto
replacement of the word love with luuurve,
a table. Ideally, the weight of the sapphires—
loave, luff in Annie Hall. A sapphire is endless in
heavier than the surrounding gravel and stones—
its blues, each shade exquisite. Is it any wonder
will allow them to stay grounded in your pan until
why a bride would wear anything else as her
the flip, revealing themselves at the top of your
something blue?
mound when you’ve successfully heaved them
In true Montana fashion, these raw beauties
upside down without disrupting the contents.
are found right here in our Treasure State.
Tweezers are used to pluck the gems and safely
Within a few hundred miles between our bor-
stow them in a plastic tube to be evaluated inside.
ders are several mines to which jewelers have
Easy, right? Like all processes, sapphire
access to sapphire gravel through miners
mining has its own intricacies. It all depends on
working personal claims, one of those shops
what your reason is for a visit.
being a stone's throw away.
“Our El Dorado material tends to produce
Anna and Gary Provost, owners of Montana
the bigger sapphires, so if you’re wanting a big-
Gems of Philipsburg, has the pleasure of
ger stone for a ring, that’s going to be a better
uncorking this natural wonder to visitors from
choice,” said Anna. “Our Rock Creek stuff tends
all over the country. Their shop is adorned with
to give you better color but it usually doesn’t
the glitter of glistening cut stones beneath
produce as big of a stone.”
CONTINUED >
October 2017 | Missoula Valley Lifestyle
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