I think I've been a rock hunter all my life, really. Even when I was little, I used to dig in the bank of the nearby stream, and along the sides of gravel roads looking for pretty rocks. If there was anything interesting, I used to bring it home. I would have piles of rocks in the garden surrounding my mom's favorite flowers. Half the time it choked out her favorite flowers, which made her so frustrated! I, of course, thought it made her flowers look beautiful, even if they were dead!
Every once in a while I'd find something really unusual like an agate, but most of the time they were granites, or maybe an interesting Jasper that I found somewhere. I'd always get really excited if we'd get to go to a state park in another area, and I'd find something really unusual, like a geode or an amethyst! That was SUCH a treat!
Now that I'm older, I do daily journeys far and wide looking for that special rock. I wander deep into rivers, sometimes all the way up to my waist, looking for interesting rocks! I pay farmers to dig rocks out of their fields, or wander in their forests to see what I can find. I hunt through antique shops and rock shops all over the country to see what they have that I don't! I go to places near and far, see beautiful scenery, and pluck stones that are rare and unique, all to bring them back home and see what treasures they'll reveal once they are cleaned, and polished, and cut, and drilled. This is the first step in the journey turns a raw rock into a beautiful semi-precious stone that ends up in my artwork.