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About Us
All American Lapidary grew out of a personal love of custom jewelry
that owner Steve Booth has carried in his heart for as long as he can remember...
Perhaps it is the power of his birthstone, turquoise, that drove him to
go directly to mines and mining locations.
He had always been involved in the crafting process. Growing up in the
summers in Iowa with his Grandmother Hortense Butler Heywood with
thousands of volumes of books to dream through. Or perhaps, it was
those tales of folk stories that had smiths forging and hammering
common things into beautiful jewelry.
It took more than a 1001 nights to create this website, but the dream
took place slowly in a boy's heart -- a boy who grew up in a family
that believed in fairy tales. This belief in craft, and in those that
create with their own hands, created the vision for this site. For
others to wear and create, Steve was led to find many wonderful people
that found, or found others, that dug the earth and found the riches
that only the romantics could understand.
His early travels led to the four corners. Not of the globe, but the
area known as Four Corners. Where turquoise was the tears of the gods.
Where fine rugs were woven on clean dirt floors of hogans. This
blending of reality and the Persian fairytales was the road that kept
him awake and traveling for years.
At one point to supply his jewelry stores. Later, as a learning
experience that led to Bisbee, Morenche, Kingman, Number 8, Landers
Blue, Blue Gem and also the trading stores that sold to the craftsmen
that made the Southwestern jewelry. The indigenous peoples of the
Southwest desert. Even their descendants had left pottery and
petroglyphs as makers and proof of the love of design and communication
that these and all indigenous people had.
The traders were a central part of the history of how jewelry, and art
in general, was facilitated by trading, bartering, collection and sale
of component parts. Stone, shell, leather, feather and seeds all play a
central role in the creation. Starting this journey in the 60's had its
own story, although admittedly, many of the facts were changed, omitted
or completely forgotten by the sheer thrill of being in the middle of a craft's movement.
Before the sixties, most of the component parts were European or from
East coast jewelry suppliers. This is an important consideration in
understanding the Southwestern crafts movement. One of the largest
suppliers of jewelry parts looked more like a subterranean car parts
store than the huge retailer and wholesaler of today.
Magazines and the print media were just starting to feature handmade
Southwestern jewelry. Instead of tiny parts kick-pressed out, there
were hand-forged parts or sawn parts. The turquoise of this period was wonderful.
But the highest quality, now called museum quality, was still rare and
almost nonexistent. This site is for all indigenous peoples to have the
ability to find the "finest of the fine," without affiliations to
organizations, membership to museums, and not limited to the pretenders
to the throne.
Steve welcomes all to shop and enjoy his designs and the wonderful
specimens that are still rarely for sale today. Allamericanlapidary.com
is the cyber answer to "where can I find that piece with zat?" Now you
can look to your own jewelry as you set or buy our gems and jewels. We
can all be those wonderful visions of yesterday's mythology and wear
handmade jewelry just like the characters in "A Thousand and One Nights."
Thanks for visiting us come again soon.
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