Lapidary Club welcomes all to its updated ‘creativity center’
by Patty Marsters
pattym@lwsb.com
The Lapidary Club is excited to show off its remodeled room this month. Among the changes are new polishers, kiln and diamond saw. All of which will be on display during the club’s upcoming open house. (Exact dates have yet to be announced.) What hasn’t changed is the welcoming atmosphere. Anyone entering the room in Clubhouse 4 is greeted warmly and shown around, with members encouraging newcomers to sign up for a class and try something. “Everyone’s so friendly,” says Jan Friedland. “We learn from each other.”
Club President Dean Jacobus prefers to call the Lapidary Room a “creativity center,” he says. Though the word lapidary refers to the cutting, polishing or engraving of precious stones and gems, the club offers so much more. “We get people started with beading, then they get interested and want to learn more, so they take more classes. They learn to cut and polish rocks and gems, then it’s working with glass and silversmithing. We get them hooked.”
Jacobus estimates it takes newcomers about three hours of training to know all the machines in the room. Most classes cost around $10 and include materials. For example, if you sign up for a beading class, you’ll get a tray to design jewelry pieces, plus access to all the beads and tools you need.
Once you learn the basics, club members say, you’re welcome to come back for more fun on your own. “After, say, the fused glass class,” Jacobus explains, “you walk out with two small bowls. Now you know how to do the basics, so you can come back and make something larger.”
The process can become something of an addiction. After caring for her husband for 11 years until his death, Thuy Do decided to take up a new hobby. She took a class in the Lapidary Room, then came back to learn something else. She learned how to cut and polish rocks and gems and how to craft extraordinary items. “Every day, I go to church, then I come here to make something,” she says. The display case outside the room features many of her works, including a glass bowl, a freshwater pearl necklace with a floral clasp, and a clock made from stone.
But one piece not in the display case is the blue topaz ring she presented to her daughter Stephanie as a wedding present last year. “Lucky I didn’t make a mistake, or it would have been a very small ring,” Do says with a giggle. In fact, there was enough left over to make a ring for her other daughter, Jennifer, and herself.
Another regular presence in the Lapidary Room is silversmith Paul Polinski, who teaches wire bending and soldering classes. He also tries to fix jewelry for LW residents. “I get a lot of antique pieces,” he says. While his specialty is silver, if someone comes in needing a gold jump ring or something simple, he can often help.
In addition to a wide range of classes, the club also ventures outside the gates from time to time. There are quarterly field trips to the OC Mineral & Gem Fair at the OC Fairgrounds to stock up on beads, wire, gems, tools and more. But some members will find what they need in unlikely places.
Do pulled a large piece of multicolored glass from her daughter’s yard in San Diego; she’s now cutting it into pieces to make jewelry. “I saw this, and I said, ‘I can make something with this,’” she says, unwrapping the cloth protecting it.
And with that, she gets back to creating.
Paul Polinski works on a piece of silver jewelry.Patty Marsters
