Left Coast Sea Glass ~ Pacifica,CA ~ leftcoastseaglass@gmail.com
I have been privileged to live near the Pacifica Ocean all my life. My mom used to tell me that when I was a child all they had to do to keep me occupied when we visited the beach was to give me a bucket and I’d walk to China collecting whatever happened to catch my fancy on the way.
I spent my summers at the beach, got my fist kiss at the beach and generally always felt it was my place of solace and thought.
Many years later, living in Pacifica with my family, my sister gave my youngest daughter a jewelry making kit from Costco. She wasn’t particularly impressed but I loved it. I started going to bead and jewelry shows, taking classes and soon learned to fashion earrings, necklaces and bracelets from semi precious stones and handmade beads. I went to craft shows selling my wares until one day I stopped into a new local boutique specializing in coastal treasures and there in the case in front of the cash register was a beach glass bracelet from Hawaii. I was captivated, instantly.
An obsession was born. I had beach glass I’d collected but I needed to learn to drill it. So I did. I also stepped up my collecting right at my own Linda Mar Beach just blocks from my house. I had already been to Glass Beach in Fort Bragg. I started making earrings, bracelets and necklaces from sea glass.
In joining the beach/sea glass world I have made good friends, traveled to wonderful places, been to crazy busy beach glass shows and have met many folks just as obsessed as I am, in a good way. The sea glass world is wild, wonderful and all consuming. I have finally given most of my semi precious and beads away. I have one jewelry line I call Hardly Strictly Beach Glass made of some semi precious stones and beach glass. That is my one concession to my former jewelry art.
I shall continue to look for sea glass around the world (that’s ½ the fun), create new and imaginative pieces and look forward to new shows and friends. It isn’t lost on me that sea/beach glass is really trash and what I am doing is the ultimate recycling. I’m making wearable art out of something someone threw away. Lucky me.
