RUTILATED QUARTZ: Inner Beauty

Michael Dyber was one of the first American carvers to appreciate the spatial and sculptural potential of rutilated quartz.

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RUTILATED QUARTZ: Inner Beauty #1
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Michael Dyber was one of the first American carvers to appreciate the spatial and sculptural potential of rutilated quartz. When he made those discoveries back in the early 1980s, the gem was abundant and affordable—no more than $50 a kilo for top-grade material. Now the cost is at least six times that and Dyber has to fight for primo product. "Everybody wants crystals that are water-clear, free of gas bubbles, and have bright, golden blazes of rutile needles," says the Rumney, New Hampshire, gem sculptor.
The current feeding frenzy over this included quartz is easy to explain. Included quartz presents designers and artisans with peerless possibilities for individualism—an individualism that appeals to a growing number of consumers who want jewelry that is an expression of taste, uniqueness, and originality.
Those, of course, are the same attributes that first drew a new generation of American sculptors like Dyber, Glenn Lehrer, and Kevin Lane Smith to rutilated quartz. As the world's best-known and most-revered included gemstone, rutilated quartz is a double blessing for cutters. First, it is endowed with minerals which serve as free-form, often stunning assemblages. Second, it is an inviting transparent crystal medium that lends itself to contouring to create unique shapes and produce optical effects possible with no other gem.
This interplay was a godsend for carvers who wanted to create art objects whose interiors were as arresting as their exteriors. "It was as if Mother Nature was collaborating with man on joint-venture gem sculptures," says Dyber. "She would place dynamic arrangements of inclusions in clear rock crystal and the cutter would craft the clear substance in which they were housed to reveal and expand their visual appeal."
Shortly after Dyber and his fellow carvers discovered rutilated quartz for art's sake, cutters like Greg Genovese, Cape May, New Jersey, discovered it for adornment purposes. Rutilated quartz quickly became a popular pendant stone, especially with silversmiths. Now there was a twin tugging on supply as cutters vied with carvers for the 10 percent of supply they found suitable for crafting.
GOING, GOING, GONE GLOBAL
The supply situation has steadily worsened as the demand for rutilated quartz has gone global. Now the situation threatens to become drastic. "Once the Chinese entered the market, things got really tough," Dyber says. "American cutters used to buying rutilated quartz by the kilo were suddenly pitted against Chinese buyers who went to Brazil and bought it by the ton. The Chinese were at an advantage because they could use every quality the way American cutters couldn't. I'm sure you've seen those low-grade rutilated quartz frogs and turtles that tourists love to bring back from China."
The supply squeeze has forced cutters like Genovese who wish to persevere in included quartz to visit Brazil where they must buy direct from the miners at pick-of-the-litter prices. "The American rough dealer is fast disappearing," Genovese says. "The Brazilians either cut the material themselves or sell it to cash-flush buyers from Asia. I have to go to Brazil to find what I need." But even there Americans find the going rough because the U.S. dollar has lost 50 percent of its value in the last two years.
This isn't to say that rough doesn't make it to this country. However, less of it stays here to be processed. At the January rough and rock show at Quartzite in western Arizona, there were dealers from China and Indonesia buying by the truckload. "I'd say that Asians accounted for ten percent of the buyers, but it seems to me they bought more than all the Americans combined," says John Bajoras of Sierra Madre Mining, Gloucester, Massachusetts. "I'd be watching a rock hound haggling for pieces at $13 to $14 per pound, then watch a manufacturer from Bali offer $10 per pound for everything the dealer had in stock. It makes you wonder if Americans grasp the new reality of the marketplace."
THE ULTIMATE ONE-OF-A-KIND
That new reality isn't purely economic. It's also aesthetic. "Rutilated quartz is the most modern of gemstones," says Helen Driggs, a silversmith. "Its beauty isn't about brilliance or color but about the visual appeal of inclusions housed within the stone. The observer is looking at a transparent object with a miniature abstract sculpture inside it. No two are alike."
As a result, selection guidelines are not easy to give. Yes, stones should be transparent, but they don't have to be colorless. Some smoky quartzes have beautiful inclusion arrangements. What constitutes a beautiful inclusion arrangement? Bajoras says that when it comes to rutilated quartz, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Some like their rutile wispy and hair-like; others like it thicker and more needle-like. Some like their needles sparse; others like them densely clustered.
Rutile needles come in three colors: silver, yellow, and red. Actually, the silver is often gray; the yellow is flaxen, and the red a rust-orange. Depending on size and visual interest, most rutilated quartz cabochons sell for between $3 and $25 per carat. Genovese says his typical prices for his pieces fall between $150 and $200 per piece. "People still think rutilated quartz should sell for $1 a carat. They can't get used to paying per carat prices of $15, $20, and above for first-rate stones," Bajoras says. "When you think of what this gem offers in terms of eye appeal and artistic potential to consumers hungry for things that are new and different, rutilated quartz would still be a bargain at twice the price."
author: BY DAVID FEDERMAN, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR - Modern Jeweler




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