Maine Mineral & Gem Museum
"The Maine Mineral & Gem Museum is a fabulous place nestled in one of the most gorgeous little parts of Maine. We are a small town that focuses on a very particular part of Maine's history. Maine has had mining happen here since the early 1800s and we tell the story of that particular part of Maine's history and also a little bit about Maine's place in the universe as well. We are probably the only museum definitely in the state of Maine and probably the only one in the United States that tells a particular part of mining history. You know, like I said they've been mining here in Maine since the early 1820s and still continued to this day, mostly for gemstones at this point. But before really the 1960s they've been mining for industrial minerals. So we tell the story of that -- we preserve the pieces that have been mined here we preserve the stories of the people who did the mining and who created the jewelry. So it's kind of a local history museum, and certainly, something that our visitors don't expect when they walk in the door," said Maggie Kroenke.
When folks think about gems and Maine the first thing that comes to mind is tourmaline. In October 1972, near the top of Plumbago Mountain in Newry, George Hartman, Dean McCrillis, Dale Sweatt, and contract miner Frank Perham unearthed North America’s most magnificent single discovery of gem-quality tourmaline crystals–more than a ton in all. The discovery sent shockwaves through Maine and around the mineral world. Never had such a large quantity of world-class tourmaline gem rough been found in a single locality in North America.
"2022 is the 50th anniversary of what's called the Big Find. It was one of the largest traveling finds in North America. And, you know, being the Maine Mineral & Gem Museum, I said, Well, we got to celebrate it somehow. And no, luckily, we were sort of coming out of the woods a little bit with COVID. And I said, Well, we gotta throw a party somehow. I started thinking about the gemstones that I have in my retail collection that I have available for customers and also artisans. Knowing that I had some absolutely amazing ones. I said, Well, let's figure out how we can get some artists involved. So I thought, well, you know, here in the museum store, we work with local artisans and I provide them with gemstones and they make beautiful jewelry that I have available in the store and I said well let's expand on that a little bit. So I brought that to what became the big find committee and they said, well, why don't we try to make this a nationwide thing. In July of last year, we sent out a call to artists and received over 30 submissions. We narrowed down the gemstones to 12, we would pick 12 artists from those who submitted and we would have a selection committee. I created a selection committee with people who were in the arts and jewelry community, both here in Maine, and nationwide. Then they had an hour-long Zoom, because of course, some were a little farther away and randomly chose the 12 gems for each artisan. They would have a year to create these pieces with complete and total artistic control," said Maggie.
On Saturday, October 8th the Maine Mineral & Gem Museum will be hosting The Big Reveal event in Bethel. All 12 pieces will be showcased on models and the models will also be wearing pieces from local fashion designers, Catherine Fisher, Angelrox by Roxi Suger -- I interviewed Roxi on the podcast, and True Self Couture. There will be a VIP portion of the event where folks can meet one-on-one with the artisans who are a part of this project and see the pieces up close. To learn more about the event and get your tickets, click here.
To see all of the artisans involved in this project, click here.
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