WINTER AGATES BROWN TROUT

Seven years ago I went to the Oregon coast to surf with friends; I used to surf the Oregon coast quite a bit. I had heard about an agate beach nearby where we were staying and planned to go during this trip. Although I had never gone agate hunting, something was drawing me into really wanting to go.

We arrived at the coast and I told my friends that I was going to look for agates the following day, they were intrigued and wanted to join. The next day was windy, 20-30mph windy with higher gusts, but I didn’t care, the agates were calling. We arrived at the beach I had read about and the sand was blowing sideways, stinging the legs, getting into the eyes. We began looking for agates and it didn’t take long to find them, jelly bean sized agates were seemingly everywhere. I was enthralled, captivated by the color, shine and shape.

My brain started spinning as to what I could make out of these million year old rocks (in college I took 24 credits of metal craft, making small sculptures and jewelry). With these agates I could make rings and necklaces.

After 45-minutes my friends were over getting blasted by the sand, I didn’t care and wanted to stay out there all day...we drove one car and had to leave. On the way back to camp I promised myself I would come back to the coast and hunt for more agates.

At camp I studied up on how to clean and polish agates. Unfortunately, when I got home I bowed down to the easiest route of beautifying and used sandpaper and oil, polished my favorite agate, drilled a hole through it and made a necklace for a friend. The proper process of cleaning and polishing seemed too time consuming...the results of being impatient showed in the final product I handed to my friend; opaque with scratches.

Fast forward to this Winter, a Winter that has been dismal to say the least for snowfall and the calling to go back to the coast to hunt for agates came back. Winter is the best time for agate hunting because the large swells churn up the beach, expose agates and throw more agates onto the beach. I have worked in the snow for 25+ years and this year the snow has sucked for the most part, a perfect time to pivot and go look for agates. I came up with the idea you see in front of you: make shapes with the agates and take photos of them. The initial shape was simply a square, unifying the colors as to what I thought would look cool.

One of my best friends lives on the Oregon coast and I called him to ask if I could stay at his place so I could go agate hunting. He said no problem. A big swell was underway, so I packed my bags and drove to my friend's house. The following morning I woke up at 5:30am and drove to an agate beach I had read about. Arriving at the parking lot it was dark and cold, around 32 degrees. I suited up with warm clothes, grabbed a pillow case to place the agates in and walked out to the beach. Sunrise was underway and it was absolutely gorgeous. I began looking and it didn’t take long to find the little gems. I noticed there were red and green ones, not just the white ones, were these agates? I picked them up anyway. I found out later they were Jasper. After six hours and two fistfuls of agates I was exhausted, who knew agate hunting would be so tiring...I loved it!

The following morning I repeated the process and the following morning after that. Roughly 18 hours of agate hunting on this trip had me beat, but I was fulfilled...beautiful sunrises, beautiful agates and deep conversations with other agate hunters (it’s a life for many).

I knew going into this idea that I had to get a rock tumbler to properly clean and polish the agates, so I went to the local rock shop when I got back home and bought one. I also purchased two different kinds of cleaning and polishing powders, stage three and four. The person at the rock shop said I didn’t need stages one and two because the agates were already so smooth and clean.

The process to clean and polish is fairly simple, yet time consuming. I would fill the rock tumbler container 2/3 of the way with agates, add stage three powder, mix with water to the top of the agates, place on the rock tumbler and turn the machine on. Was I doing this right? I didn’t know, but I had to wait three days to find out. Three days passed and I pulled the container off the machine, I was nervous. Did I add the right amount of powder and water? Were the rocks destroyed? I opened up the container, dumped the rocks into a strainer over a five gallon bucket, rinsed with water and looked: the agates looked fine, although I couldn't tell if they were that much different, those results would come in the next stage.

Stage four of cleaning and polishing is the same process, except this one takes six days. Patience, gah, not my strong suit sometimes...I like results with hard work, this was out of my control and I had to exercise patience. I turned the machine on, wrote the date on a calendar the time they went in and waited. Each day and night the rock tumbler was doing it’s thing in my living room, the sound was white noise, soothing, especially knowing what was taking place inside that little container. I would go into the snow knowing the rock tumbler was hard at work, cleaning and polishing these tiny, but powerful agates and it was both exciting and soothing to my soul.

Day six arrived and I was ecstatic, I couldn’t wait to open up the rock tumbler container and see the results. I am not joking, I was truly pumped up to see!!! The hours were counted down and 6pm arrived, I opened up the container, cleaned the agates over the strainer and placed them by color on a sheet to dry. They looked incredible, my heart was beating as I placed each agate to dry. Wow! Smooth, shiny and truly gorgeous.

I knew instantly the day I left my friends house on that initial agate hunting trip to start this idea I was going to have to come back to get more agates to accomplish the goal. I ended making five trips to the coast to have enough. Those days weren’t great weather either, I had to time big swells and sometimes the weather was gnarly. One trip was snow and wind (yes snow on the coast), one trip there was 50mph+ winds and heavy rain. I loved it all. The legal limit is one gallon of agates per day, I ended up with about 1.5 gallons in total...these are a little over an inch at their biggest size.

After four trips and six tumbles in the tumbler (totaling 54 days of that) I began making a square with all the agates. I almost finished the square and didn’t like what I saw; it was uneven and I was short in agates. One more trip to the coast yielded the proper amount and I made stencils so that the outline designs would be as close to perfect as I could achieve.

Placing the agates to create the shape is like making your own puzzle, except the pieces are never going to fit perfectly. With the tip of a pencil, breathing fluidly, I would place the agates where I thought they would fit best. This process really tweaks the brain, you’re placing ancient material (agates) to create a shape you hope looks awesome. What a treat to say the least! This part was around 16 hours to complete.

I created the Brown Trout because I fell in love with fly fishing almost two years ago to the date. Since that time, I have fly fished over 500 days, no joke :)

This is the third of five images I plan to shoot.

Very pleased how this turned out.

All in all this project, if you include tumbling the agates and driving, will be around 400 hrs. :)