I Own A Art Gallery!!!

Last fall I was sitting in my studio talking to God, I said "I am in a rut, please help me find something to do." The next day I was going to Target and when driving down McGregor Blvd. for some reason the "Shabby to Chic" sign at the edge of the road that has been there for about a year caught my attention. The next thing you know my car was turning into the parking lot. As I walked up to the store I saw my two friends Kay and Julie on the porch and I said what are you two doing here? My friend Kay had been telling me about their shop for about a year saying there was room for me to have my art in there as there was an empty shop next door that they had taken over recently on a temporary basis. I thought their shop was in a different location on San Carlos Blvd. where Julie's Allstate office used to be. Evidently she moved to Kingston Square Plaza and here she was! I was so surprised and Julie said that she turned the key back over to the Landlord the day before to the extra space. As soon as I saw the space I was like okay God this must be why my car almost drove in here by itself.

I called the landlord and I got the key to the new space just before November and had the Grand Opening in December.

I decided to name it Iona Art Gallery after our quaint little area called Iona and I also liked the play on words because I own a art gallery!!!

It has been my dream to open a rock shop some day and I have been collecting specimens to sell for quite a few years so when I opened the gallery of course I wanted to have some rocks but I didn't know that it would turn into such a prominent part of the gallery. People seem more interested in the rocks than my art and that includes myself! I have been learning about all the metaphysical properties of the different gems and minerals and it is fascinating to find out so many interesting rocks have healing properties too. Still very skeptical about a lot of the information that I read, I do like to experiment with different rocks to see what the rocks feel like. There are a few of the so called high vibrational stones like phenacite and moldavite that give me a very bad headache if I handle them for very long. I learned that one rock that we mined for up in North Carolina is called Azeztulite and they are selling small chunks for fifteen dollars a piece online and some guy named Robert Simmons is writing books about it. We just thought it was a milky white quartz but it turns out that is a very high vibrational stone Who knew? We had it outside in an old spaghetti strainer and David had tied some chunks of it to the bonsai trees to train the branches down. One day last year before I heard about this Azeztulite I was out in the garden and I grabbed one of the pieces of the milky quartz and I felt the powerful resonance in my hand, I was like wow, this is some really strong quartz but I just thought, well, it is quartz! When I found out about the Azeztulite I bought some online and I had a really wonderful experience with it when I was just thinking about stuff, it came to me to quit chewing the nicotine gum that I had been chewing for years so on Good Friday, I said in my son's honor I will quit so I did. I haven't had any since. God did help me with that and there have been so many things happen to me since I first saw the little white rock. I am finding out there is some truth to the energy and the healing properties of the stones.

When I was a kid my uncle who was a rockhound came back from out west with some uranium in his car and he died of cancer not long after, so as far as I can see some rocks are pretty powerful.

I accidentally had a bowl of the white quartz on my dresser in my bedroom overnight because I was going to bring it to work to show someone who knew all about it. When I woke up I felt like my chest had tons of pressure on it and I couldn't breath very well. I felt awful. I was laying in bed and I asked David to move the crystals outside and as soon as they left the room I started to feel the pressure go away. It was so weird. I have had that happen before with other crystals like Moldavite when I accidentally wore it to bed at night on a pendant. I woke up with a massive headache and remembered and as soon as I took it off it went away, like poof! I have a pair of Herkimer diamond earrings that I can't even put on. They are so big and when I put them on my head starts spinning and my ears ring.

I know that I have gotten off the track with this blog post, I

Please visit me at Iona Art Gallery located at 16681 McGregor Blvd. Ste. 201 in Fort Myers, Florida. I am open from 10 - 4 Tuesday through Saturday and by appointment any time by calling (239) 246-5987.