About The Discovery

I am Halie Rebeccaschild, recipient of an heirloom legacy gem collection from the late Rebecca Blain. I now curate gems that have been waiting for their moment.

Lost Grotto Studio began when my mother bought natural gemstones — cut during the Lapidary Renaissance (c. 1980s–1990s) — directly from a master facet artist. She tucked them all away for thirty years, in a tin can of all places.

When I opened that can, I rediscovered a joy I had forgotten. I found Mom's long-forgotten gem trove — an archive of American lapidary art — including two works of what appears to be an undocumented technique: faceted narrative intarsia. Assembled from multiple eye-clean gemstone segments, cut in 1996 by artist Ron Ruschman, these pieces have no precedent in the literature I have been able to find.

My mother collected what she loved. She saw something special in Ruschman's private work. Over ten years, the collection became a treasure and a repository of faceting techniques — a quiet celebration of her eye, his artistry, and their long collaboration as patron and master artist.