| It all started in Crown King, Arizona. According to legend, that mining camp's asayer befriended a lucky prospector by transforming a heart he had woven from ponderosa pine needles into a solid gold gift for the prospecror's bride-to-be, back in New England. |  |
Later, another prospector, scouring the Canada del Oro between Tucson and Oracle, found little gold, but he did find some beautiful fragments of ironwood and mesquite that had been beautifully sculpted by time and weather. These objects caught his fancy, and, so the story goes, one thing led to another, with the Crown King assay office turning out jewelry that looked like desert driftwood, transformed by magic into gold and silver.
Today, in Oro Valley, this tradition is carried on by an old prospector who scours the Sonoran Desert, looking for naturally sculptured fragments of ironwood and mesquite, and like the old assayer in Crown King, transforms the shapes into gold and silver – and adds gemstones that have been found in Arizona and elsewhere in the world.
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