In keeping with the 39-year tradition of featuring the world’s most renowned artists during the weekly ArtWalks in downtown Scottsdale, Touchstone Gallery is excited to be hosting an evening with 3rd generation lapidary artist Ed Rigel from 6 – 9 p.m. on Thursday, October 3.

Ed’s primary medium is the collecting, cutting and polishing of Arizona’s 225-year-old petrified wood. Collected from private lands near Holbrook, Arizona and presented in outstanding creations of tables, wall art and gift items such as petrified wood bookends, each piece reflects Ed’s years of patient attention to detail and love of the natural beauty found in these priceless treasures from nature.

On display for this event will be a 5-foot-long, half-round log Ed has worked to a mirror finish that showcases a number of the natural knots within this amazing example of Rainbow Wood known as auracarioxylon arizonicum – the state fossil of Arizona.

Also on display for Thursday and Friday, October 3 and 4, will be the full-fossil skeleton of an 8’-8” tall Cave Bear from Ed’s private collection. Through Ed’s work as a member of the Board of Directors for the Association of Applied Paleontological Sciences (AAPS), he will be showcasing this incredible 50,000-year-old skeleton from the Ural Mountains in Russia.