Jim Perkins began an interest in rock collecting after finding a concretion outside his home during his grade school years. Later his Father became interested in rocks, minerals, fossils and lapidary.
Soon he started a Rock Shop in our home town as an avocation where Jim learned to tumble stones and cut slabs and make cabocons. Later he learned to do gem repair for local jewlers and while in college taught lapidary and copper enameling at a local arts and crafts school.

Over the years Jim has won many BEST OF SHOW awards for his paintings and drawing in art shows around Ohio. Jim works in Water Color, Acrylics, Pen & Ink, Ceramics, Enameling, Photography, Wood, Metal and Stone. "I enjoy the fluidity of line, contrast and texture and especially enjoy exploring negatvie shapes and odd symmetry."

Most recently I have been working with light performance, contrast and reflected pattern in transparent and transluscent stones I especially enjoy trying to achineve very limited extinction without sacrificing good contrast and brilliance.

Jim works full time as an engineer in his own business North Coast Precision Service, Inc. selling, servicing and certifying optical measuring machines and geometric computational digital read-outs for industrial applications. However, when our schedule permits I like to take a week off and teach faceting. Faceting is a mystery to many people however after spending a week in my studio I am able to unravel the mysteries of gem cutting for them and it is lots of fun to see the light turn on in their heads once they grasp the concepts. I can and have taught people in their teens up to their eighties how to facet and enjoy making gem rough turn into a beautiful creation of light and color.

Jim can be reached by phoning his office at 330-725-6070 or by e-mail: jimperkins@zoominternet.net

You can also read Jim's faceting column, OFF THE DOP in Rock & Gem Magazine and find articles and faceting designs in Rock & Gem or Lapidary Journal/Jewelery Artist Magazine.