Last month the California Suiseki Society had its 15th annual show in the Lakeside Garden Center. It was a sublime exhibit with an attentive audience.
The best photo I got that afternoon is this stone by Jim Broadhurst. See more of the stones here and here.
There is an older suiseki society across the bay, San Francisco Suiseki Kai. They are such purists that until recently they did not even use English, but their current president, Janet Roth, is an Anglophone. Their 29th annual exhibit is coming up next weekend: August 7 and 8, 10 am to 4 pm, in the Japan Center, at the Union Bank Hospitality Room at 1675 Post Street. The collectors themselves award winners of the exhibit by voting for their favorite stones. Me, I love finding out where the stones come from, then scratching my head in happy confusion at the mixture of thoughts, aesthetic and geologic, that arise as I contemplate them.
Janet Roth couldn’t resist saying in her note to me announcing the show, “Of course, if the legislature outlaws serpentine we will be in a pickle.”
Oakland Geology 
1 August 2010 at 4:53 pm
Wow, I had no idea these stones had organized societies. How neat; thanks for sharing Andrew!