FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[Elise]

I hope members will enjoy reading two tributes I wrote to Arthur Tracey Grant Jr. (1925–2015) which are now freely available online:

"In Memoriam: Arthur Tracey Grant Jr." (1925–2015). Rocks & Minerals, Vol.91, No.2, 189-190 https://www.rocksandminerals.org/Back%20Issues/2016/March-April%202016/grant-memoriam-full.html

and a much longer version of the above:

"Written in Stone: Remembering Master Faceter Art Grant." InColor Magazine, Vol. 24, pages 24-29
PDF: https://www.nordskip.com/2016_InColor_ArtGrant_web.pdf
(links normalized by FMF)

Best wishes,
Elise

[Peter Megaw]

Art was a great faceter, friend and gentleman of the first order. I will always cherish the stones I have that he cut and the years of friendship we shared. He could facet ANYTHING!!!

[Elise]

Hi Peter,

Thank you for adding to the Memoriam. I was invited to write the tribute for Rocks & Minerals magazine, but by the time I whittled down the manuscript it was still 6x the acceptable length for publication. I was so pleased when R&M Editor Marie Huizing and the Editors and Executive Director of InColor/ICA agreed to publish an abbreviated version in R&M and the long version in InColor (cross-referenced). The two magazines target different audiences and so the story reached more people than it might otherwise have.

I spent many hours and days interviewing friends and family, enough to fill many more pages – the toughest and most daunting part was how to weave it all together in such a way as to portray him accurately in the combined light which people held him (hopefully).

I'm very excited that the tribute is now open access so that a wider circle of friends, family and admirers may read it, but also so that more people will learn about the life and artistry of this remarkable man! I hope that this thread might grow with other voices to add to the story.

All best wishes,
Elise

[Carl]

Art got me started in this crazy, wonderful world of minerals 50 years ago this spring. "Mr. Grant" was my gym teacher (he was also my parents gym teacher), and he put a display of self-collected New York minerals in a display case at my school. Think Herkimers, "hexagonite", and Power's Farm tourmaline. I was ending 1st grade, and I was hooked.

Our tiny town of Hannibal, NY had a gem and mineral club that had a public show in the bus garage each summer. That summer Art let me help him set up his display at the show, and I have never lost the passion for minerals and gems that he instilled in me.

We became, and have always been, close friends. Many of the things I do for our "hobby" I do because of him; in honor of him. Thank you Art.

Carl Miller

[Elise]

My friend Dr. Steve Chamberlain, Chairman of the Rochester Mineralogical Symposium, alerted me to an error in “Written in Stone: Remembering Master Faceter Art Grant" (InColor Magazine, Vol. 24, pages 24-29) regarding the caption for figure 2B on page 24, the 1,865 ct faceted twinned calcite from Balmat, New York:

“The rough for the large stone centered on a twin plane that is now in the Smithsonian (Fig. 2B) is the St. Joe #3 mine, not the #2 mine. I've confirmed this with George Robinson [Emeritus Curator of the A. E. Seaman Mineral Museum and Professor in the Department of Geological Engineering and Sciences at Michigan Tech] and Bill deLorraine. We believe all the large faceted calcites from the Balmat Mining District came from the huge crystals of Iceland spar found in the #3 mine. Very few calcite crystals of any kind were found in the #2 mine.”

My source for the mine origin came from the Smithsonian which sent me the Chip Clark photo to use, as well as the Smithsonian catalog, both of which stated the St. Joe #2 mine. ( https://collections.nmnh.si.edu/search/ms/?irn=1000044 accessed 11/13/2015 ). I’ll alert the curator at the Smithsonian and I’ve added a correction in the Open Access PDF to the caption along with an endnote. I hope this correction filters down through everywhere; it is rare that a faceted gemstone has a confirmed origin and so it is important to update with an erratum to the tribute, as well as anywhere else this famous stone appears in print.

Link for the annotated PDF (same file name as above):
https://www.nordskip.com/2016_InColor_ArtGrant_web.pdf
(links normalized by FMF)

All best wishes,
Elise