On a rainy Sunday afternoon a few weeks ago, we spent the afternoon at the Santa Cruz Sea Glass Festival. This year the festival featured 37 artists, and was held at the Coconut Grove on the famous Santa Cruz boardwalk. A little sideways rain, a little wind, but not enough to stop this Northwest beach girl from exploring some fabulous sea glass treasures!
Met some amazingly creative people -
Santa Cruz Sea Glass Company put a ton of time and effort into making this year's festival a success. They have an outstanding collection of sea glass from Santa Cruz and Monterey beaches, some of which actually glowed when a light was applied. The biggest crowd was gathered around their booth!
This is just one example of Krista Hammond's art - chunky beautiful tumbled sea glass treasures!
Christeena of
Sea Glass Jewels is a lucky lucky artist, living for half of year in Key West, and the other half collecting sea glass in Greece.
Liked her unique silver pieces and colors, most of her glass does come from walking on the beach in Greece - tough duty. I admit it, am a tiny bit jealous of her jet setting!
Polly of
BluMag Photography had a great idea - she uses her incredible photographic talent to capture photos of sea glass and beach objects on her local Aptos beach. She then uses those images on beautifully made black lacquered jewelry boxes. Unique idea from the shores of Monterey Bay...
Hope you can see this "tree" with pieces of sea glass ornaments - what a great idea! Not just for the holidays...
Had a great conversation with Gary, of The Sea Glass Journal. What a cool display of sea glass finds he had from the East Coast! (including some flotsam and jetsam) When I got home, I checked out his website - educational and interesting for us sea glass enthusiasts. When you get a chance, check out the
The Sea Glass Journal too, I think you will like the articles, pictures and information that can be found here.
Met Joselin Iselin, the author of a fabulous photographic art series of "beach" books. Loved her, and had so much in common. Could have talked to her for hours about beach combing and beach preservation. Am looking forward to touring her San Francisco studio the first week in December, should be a great blog post!
"Beach, a book of treasure" (click to read more) was released this past spring and can be found at your local bookseller. A little history, a little beach walking, shells, sea glass... would make the perfect gift for the holidays! Try
Liberty Bay Books for availability....
The best part of the festival? I got the chance to meet one of my sea glass facebook friends in person! Aileen Cabral, the artist behind
Art of Seaglass makes fabulous, original silver art pieces embedded with brightly colored pieces of tumbled beach glass collected on Southern California beaches.
Small world too, my friend Janet, who owns
Potlatch Gallery, knows Aileen also and sells her creations in her gallery.
Had no idea how talented she was until I had the opportunity to see her jewelry in person. All hand crafted and designed by Aileen. Wow, think you will love too!
The best part of the whole day? Tom bought me some gorgeous pieces of Aileen's jewelry. Have to confess, I have worn these almost every day since he bought them for me!
Polly of BluMag Photography had a great idea - she uses her incredible photographic talent to capture photos of sea glass and beach objects on her local Aptos beach. She then uses those images on beautifully made black lacquered jewelry boxes. Unique idea from the shores of Monterey Bay...
8 comments:
So much to love about this post. The seaglass ornaments are so inspiring, the display in the sand... brilliant. The bracelets are gorgeous. Thank you for sharing :-))
oh, what a wonderful festival AND it's held in one my absolutely favorite towns! I'm going to have to bookmark this post, so that I can visit all the links you provided.
I adore sea glass, which my grandmother called "mermaid tears"; I don't find the variety or sizes that I did as a child, but I do appreciate that it means less glass is being carelessly tossed into our oceans. Of course, this is probably more because of the existence of more plastic bottles than glass these days. I am grateful that the artistic world has found a way to properly recycle the glass, I always just kept mine in a bowl, lol.
Oh my....love it all!!!! I wish we had a seaglass festival here....i'd be in bliss~
OMG sounds like a perfect day. these are lovely pieces and I love your pictures of the displays. maybe a sealaura trip to this festival is in order for next year. hope this weekend was awesome for you.
Great presentation of what you saw that day. Some amazing artisans there. Almost made it there but needed to make the trek back to Los Angeles....I missed out. There's next year..right? Love those earrings, I'd wear them every day too...fit for any mermaid on land of sea.
Fair Winds and Calm Seas,
Deborah Leon
www.mermaidspurseseaglass.com
Sounds like Krista and everyone associated with pulling the festival off did a great job. Sure wish I could have been there. Thanks for the wonderful pics.
Hi Caron, I feel I haven't popped in for a while. Glad I did today. What a wonderful time you must have had. I absolutely love the all that sea glass and will stop in and read about Gary's Sea Glass Journal. That book "beach" sounds fabulous too. Yep, I'm adding it to my Christmas 'wish list'. P.S. I'm having my first ever giveaway on my blog at the moment (a Flotsam Friend Christmas Angel). Pop by if you have a minute. Good to catch-up. Pruxxx
Great photos and summary of your experience at the festival this year! Hope to see you again next year - bigger cash prizes, more sea glass and ocean exhibits! Happy Holidays!
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