Features
Related Photos
-
LISA SIMPSON STRANGE
-
LISA SIMPSON STRANGE
Tools
Unearthing old, natural treasures
GLASGOW — At first glance, Paul Roides’ creations are beautifully crafted jewelry pieces. Looking closer, the observer sees they are much more.
Between 400 and 500 million years ago, the area that would one day become Kentucky was submerged beneath a warm, shallow, salton sea. Marine creatures that lived in these waters died, settled to the bottom and began the long, slow process of becoming fossilized. Through time, geologic changes and just the right conditions, these fossils became hidden treasures waiting to be unearthed.
Roides, an amateur paleontologist, is the happy treasure hunter who searches exposed limestone cliff faces and other sedimentary rock locations around the Bluegrass Basin, in the central part of the state, to find these miniature time capsules.
“When I crack open a piece of limestone 30 feet up a cliff face and find a perfect fossil animal, I know that I am the first person on earth to gaze upon it since it died there some 400-plus million years ago,” he said.
If the fossil is of the right quality, he takes it through a 10- to 15-step process to clean, grind and polish the piece. Then he incorporates it into one-of-a-kind jewelry. It can take from a couple of hours to several days to complete one of his works.
“When stringing fossils on black leather cord, I use glass, hematite, semi-precious stones, metal and/or wood beads and spacers,” he said.
Roides has been creating the jewelry for almost two years. He started out just making gifts for friends and family. He began exhibiting and selling his work in April 2007 at arts and crafts fairs and he has a display at Bernheim Forest in Claremont.
Originally from Rochester, N.Y., he has made Kentucky his home since 1990, when he was both student, then teacher at Western Kentucky University and Elizabethtown Community and Technical College. He said he began studying the state’s geology and fossilized marine life extensively five years ago. In addition to exploring for fossils and making jewelry from them, he passes time doing garden landscaping, studying Greek, history and natural science and writes about his travels.
Roides said he thinks of himself as a “lifetime student” and believes “everyone should have at least three active hobbies that burn calories.”
- Features
-
-
Patience is key with middle schoolers
Their lives are filled with drama too. Girls crave popularity and boys don’t. Girls never want to go to the bathroom alone and guys want to pull a chair out from under someone or swap licks. They all like to tattle and write notes.
-
The making of maple syrup
Sophie and I are both watching Mark Green skim the sap as it boils in the kettle. We’re in the Greens’ big back yard, near where it meets the woods.
-
Family Affair
When Claire and I began to put our plan into motion we hoped our boys would not only witness a world class sporting event but also expose their young and impressionable minds to different cultures and experiences that would create positive life lessons.
-
The gift of music was well used by family
Not to be bragging, but I come from a musically gifted family.
-
Granddaughter makes a day brighter
Now and again, when my routine seems dull and boredom sets in, I succumb to a rather ho-hum mood. That’s how it was going one cloudy day last week.
-
Homemade is not always best
“Mama, you’ve got to see this,” my grown daughter led me to a colorful booth at a craft fair in Nashville.
-
Losing the ability to be astounded
I’ve never had an urge to howl at the moon. Yet, back mid-way through the past century, I once saw fellow do just that.
-
Not all bumps are a bad thing
You don’t want to take a bump to your head. That’s for sure. And you don’t want your car to get bumped in the parking lot. That’s not good.
-
Valentine’s day brings out love songs
I am going to design a shirt that says, “I Love Love Songs.” I’ll have a heart, of course, instead of love; just like the other I love shirts. Valentine’s Day will bring out a repertoire of love songs dating back to pre WWII.
-
Grandchild sparks flashback
One of the reasons why I enjoy observing the passages of my grandchildren is that, to some degree, they provide opportunities for me to reconnect to my own childhood.
- More Features Headlines
-
Patience is key with middle schoolers
