Largest Tanzanite Carving Weigh-in

  • March 9, 2024 3:00 PM - 4:00 PM

  • Rice NW Museum of Rocks & Minerals

    26385 Northwest Groveland Drive
    Hillsboro, Oregon 97124
Ticket Price Free This event is now over
Description

Award-winning gem carver, Naomi Sarna returns to the Museum with a question: Is this the world’s largest tanzanite carving? 

 

We are hosting a weigh-in on Saturday March 9, 2024 at 3:00 pm to confirm that the 703-carat tanzanite carving, L’Heure Bleu, is the world’s largest carved tanzanite. The results of the weigh-in will be verified on site by a Guinness World Records adjudicator.  Naomi will be at the museum starting at 1pm to answer any questions about the piece and tell the story of its remarkable journey! 

 

Artist Naomi Sarna was invited to travel to the Tanzanite mines located in the foothills of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. She was asked to create a carving for an international competition. The mines are on the ancestral land of the Maasai and it is the only place in the world where this blue-violet gemstone is found. While there Sarna was asked to do humanitarian work, so she taught Maasai women how to make wire-wrap jewelry from tanzanite. Touched by the community, the poverty and the eye disease she witnessed, Sarna decided to donate profits from the sale of her award-winning tanzanite L’Heure Bleu carving  to the world renowned Casey Eye Institute to provide eyecare to the Maasai. The event will be attended by representatives of the Portland-based Casey Eye Institute.

 

While she was in Tanzania, Sarna was presented with several tanzanite crystals eventually selecting the piece that she hand-carved into the 703-carat L’Heure Bleu, the world’s largest fine color tanzanite carving. It won a First-Place Spectrum Award for carving from the American Gem Trade Association and sits on a Sterling Silver base inspired by the winds of Tanzania’s Great Rift Valley. 

Date & Time

Sat, Mar 9, 2024 3:00 PM - 4:00 PM

Venue Details

Rice NW Museum of Rocks & Minerals

26385 Northwest Groveland Drive
Hillsboro, Oregon 97124 Rice NW Museum of Rocks & Minerals
Rice NW Museum

The Rice Museum of Rocks and Minerals houses a world-class collection recognized as the finest in the Pacific Northwest and one of the best in the nation. Located just west of Portland, Oregon, in Hillsboro, the Museum showcases not only fine rocks and minerals, but also fossils, meteorites, lapidary art, and gemstones from both the Pacific Northwest and all around the world. The Museum is listed in the National Register of Historic Places for its unique architectural style, natural stonework, and the extraordinary native Oregon woodwork found throughout the building.  

 

Our mission is to engage, inspire, and educate on the wonder and complexity of our earth. 


Find more Rice NW Museum Events and Science & Technology events in Hillsboro