Raw Stone Studio Shines A Light On NB Crystals
SAINT JOHN — An entrepreneur in Saint John is bringing New Brunswick-found crystals to the hand of both locals and tourists alike.
Lea St John is the owner of Raw Stone Studio, a business that sells ethically sourced New Brunswick crystals and minerals like quartz, calcite, epidote, flint and fluorite.
St John started collecting rocks as a kid with her father. About 15 years ago, the two of them even got their New Brunswick prospecting licenses. But in recent years, they’ve been more interested in “surface collecting.” Their favourite spots to search include the Bay of Fundy coast, and along highways and cliffs.
“We still love going out into the field and seeing what we can find, but we got more into this collecting thing. I also get very excited about crystals. That’s always been my jam … So I got into surface collecting,” says St John.
“We don’t do any digging. We do separate some rocks, but … we make it so we don’t take the full rock. We just want to take the small piece. We just want to make as minimal effect to the area that we’re in as possible.”
The idea of selling her personal collection was sparked years ago while working at a rock shop in St. Andrews. The geologist who owned it would sell his sample collecting alongside the other beautiful curated stones, rocks, crystals and jewellery.
“I thought how neat would it be to start it on a smaller scale because a store is a lot of overhead,” says St John. “But there are so many great opportunities with Instagram and online that I thought it would be really fun to just have a hobby and at least pay for your expenses.”
St John sells her collection through the Raw Stone Studio Instagram page, as well at local shop, Obscurity, which sells a wide variety of crystals and stones. Raw Stone Studio provides the shop with a local product option, with each stone coming with its own ID card.
“I noticed that Obscurity opened up a shop and then there was a bigger interest in crystals online on Instagram … It was trending so high, so I thought maybe that what I’ve been collecting for fun other people would be interested in it,” says St John.
Besides selling her individual items in her collection, St John recently collaborated with some local businesses on the “Saint John Crystal Box.”
Sold via Instagram, the box features one of Raw Stone Studio’s locally collected calcite along with crystal-themed goodies such as Geode Epsom Bath Bomb made by The Blue Pelican; an amazonite sliding knot bracelet made by Essentials With Ashley; a geode rock sugar cookie made by JLM Patisserie, and a moon phase keychain made by Cunning Creations.
Raw Stone Studio is one of many hobbies and side hustles for St John, but in the future, she’d like to do more types of these collaborations.
“I think that’s my favourite part right now … I think the collaborations are the most fun thing,” she says. “I think I want to do some more things with that.”
There are several reasons people are drawn to crystals in minerals. There’s of course, the spiritual component of it, but St John says a lot of people are simply reconnecting once again with an activity they loved as kids.
“As I’m talking to people, I’m realizing we all loved looking for rocks as kids and we only went so far with it. We brought some rocks home, we maybe knew what quartz was because it’s white, and then that’s as far as our interests went,” she says.
“Then we grew up and forgot about it. Then as adults, they’re so shiny and pretty, and as I talk to more people, I’ve actually started making people go and collect rocks again.”