While growing up, my mother instilled in us the desire to be creative and make things with our own hands.

When outdoors, especially hiking, I started to find interesting rocks, then crystals, then fossils. Very quickly, I started travelling just to go find something new and amazing. Of course I envisioned a display like the Smithsonian where their natural gem crystals are shown alongside the faceted stone.

My next step was to purchase an Ultra-Tech faceting machine to learn to cut. With the large amount of information on the internet and Jeff Gram's faceting books, I became a self-taught faceter. Experimentation, creativity, and excitement came back into my life.

Math and science always came easy for me. I received my college degrees in natural products chemistry and had worked in the field for several years.

My background in chemistry gives me full knowledge of variations for all gem minerals. This, along with understanding the mathematics and physics of light, has enabled me to maximize the brilliance of each gemstone.

After many years of working as a full time chemist, I eventually quit and followed my desire for this new passion.

Creativity comes from expanding yourself beyond what you know. Because of that, I thoroughly enjoy sitting down with metalsmiths and coming up with whole new concepts and designs that neither of us would have come up with on our own. This willingness and desire to collaborate with jewelry designers truly sets me apart from other faceters.

Additionally, all the photographs of the stones seen here are also my own work. I've had a hobby of landscape and nature photography for decades, including macro photgraphy of small objects. Click here to see my original Photography website Even then, there was still a strong learing curve with gemstones. Someone once likened photographing gemstones to photographing a pile of broken mirrors...and that is not far from the truth.


Thank you for reading and enjoy.



Jim C.
PO Box 460795
San Francisco CA 94146