by Monica Ault
Daily Lobo
It doesn't take a geologist to appreciate rocks these days.
Mama's Minerals is a gallery that offers hands-on geology, stone carving and jewelry-making classes. It sells everything from fossilized shark teeth and geodes to rentable metal detectors and rock tumblers. Twenty years ago, Laura Randolph, owner of Mama's Minerals, took a trip to Arkansas to hunt for quartz crystals. Armed with a passion for rock hounding - the hunting of rocks - she returned to New Mexico with a bucket of quartz and began selling it at arts and crafts festivals and UNM.
"I never had any intention to open a store, but I did and it really took off," Randolph said.
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Mama's Minerals ships out rocks and materials to places all over the world. It receives orders online or by phone. It was mentioned by the New York Times under the unique gifts section.
Mama's Minerals sells more than just rocks.
"We want to encourage the communities to be creative outlets in any way we can. This includes our staff," said Yvette Ellison, store manager.
UNM earth and planetary sciences major, Ian Moore, started working for Mama's Minerals two months ago.
"Working here has made class easy," Moore said. "I know more minerals than I need to."
Local artists can sell their work at the gallery through consignment and sometimes wholesale. The gallery offers lapidary services, including drilling, cutting and polishing. Mama's Minerals hosts amateur arts and crafts fairs and offers free booths to artists who are customers.
"We are very community oriented," Ellison said. "We offer free geology classes to schools - any grade level - as well as to the public."
Mama's Minerals also hosts hands-on birthday parties and field trips with the cracking open of a geode.
Ellison began the education programs eight years ago.
"Kids get very excited and intrigued," she said. "They start picking up rocks outside and running up and asking, 'So what's this?'"
Ellison said the jewelry classes are popular.
"You bring in your own materials, and we provide all of the tools and, of course, the training," she said.
The gallery offers a children's jewelry-making class with a $10 materials fee.
Each weekend, the gallery offers a three-day stone-carving class, taught by Delbert ChargingCrow, whose fetishes - small stone carvings of animals - are also sold at the store. The class is $175, which includes all equipment and materials.
Mama's Minerals is one of the few places in the state that rents and sells metal detectors. The gallery also offers a free class to teach customers about metal detecting.
Keeping with the spirit of rock hounding, Mama's Minerals still buys products out of the back of people's cars, Ellison said.
"It's just another way that we give back to our community," Ellison said.
