#79 Fall 2015 Reviews Non-fiction ,
The art of collecting and creating with sea glass
Part poetry and part a practical how-to guide on the art of collecting and creating with sea glass, A Sea Glass Journey ebbs and flows on tides of fact and whimsy. Between its covers, Teri Hall invites you to accompany her on a meditative, meandering beach-combing walk that begins when the lure of sea glass prompts her to give up her 23-year career as a probation officer and to establish Fire & Water Creations, her PEI-based sea glass jewelry and home décor business.
You’ll learn the length of time it takes waves and rocks to create jewelry-grade glass (40-100 years) and the best time and place to search for glass (low tide and on a rocky or pebbly beach) and practical tips on how to create pieces using your own beach finds. Hall’s book includes tips for evaluating the pieces you discover with a handy collector’s guide to shapes and colours of sea glass and even how to spot a fake. (As genuine sea glass becomes increasingly rare, some jewelry makers are using rock tumblers to simulate the sea glass effect. However, the distinctive wave-worn patina and pattern of markings can’t be mechanically reproduced–only time and nature can do that.)
You’ll be entertained by the folklore attached to the glass, sometimes referred to as “mermaid’s tears,” entranced by the delicate hues of the still-life photographs and inspired by the notion that what was once discarded as valueless has been transformed into something of great beauty by nature and time.
As Chef Michael Smith writes in the foreword, “Perhaps sea glass is a way to remind us that beauty is ours wherever we choose to find it… and its true power is the way it inspires us to see the grace of Mother Nature and Father Time, all around us.”
A Sea Glass Journey: Ebb and Flow
by Teri Hall, with photography by Jane Milton and Carly Boertien
$24.95, hardcover, 100 pp.
Nimbus Publishing, July 2015
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