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Katie Carrin
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Treasure Sea Glass Necklaces with Gemstones |
Wind Chime Pearl & Sea Glass Necklaces |
Wind Chime |
Charm Sea |
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Please come visit me at upcoming Sea Glass Festivals |
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Fourth Annual
2009 North American Sea Glass Festival |
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In October, 2008, I attended the 3rd annual North American
Sea Glass Festival in Lewes, Delaware. There were many
talented sea glass jewelers, crafters, photographers,
collectors and writers. There were also wonderful
lectures, and of course, the
Shard of the year contest. I really enjoyed meeting
other sea glass artists and so many enthusiastic
collectors that attended the festival.
Be sure to check out the beautiful photo journal of this
event by Gary de Blois at
Sea Glass Journal.
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Katie Carrin's Passion and Inspiration
The allure of Nature has called to me all my life. As a little girl I spent much of my time exploring and collecting the gifts the natural world yielded up to my inquiring senses. The beauty that I find in Nature inspires me to design elegant and harmonious jewelry that incorporates combinations of freshwater pearls, gemstones and the most pristine pieces of authentic sea glass.
As an adult I have traveled to many places around the world happily spending endless hours exploring and collecting sea glass from beaches in Israel, England, Spain, Hawaii, Wisconsin and the Northern California coast. Sea glass (or beach glass) is glass found on beaches along seas, oceans or large lakes that has been tumbled and smoothed by the water and sand, creating small pieces of smooth, frosted glass.
My passion for collecting has afforded me the opportunity to amass an authentic and voluminous array of sea glass gems. In recent years sea glass has come to the forefront as a rare treasure. Glass has not been disposed of along the coasts for many years. It is a diminishing resource since Mother Nature requires decades to turn broken shards of glass into beautiful sea glass gems. A large percentage of sea glass in my collection as well as what I use in my jewelry designs is English sea glass. These exceptional pieces produced by powerful conditioning and weathering forces of the north Sea are natural gems of the likes found nowhere else in the world. This is due primarily to the proliferation of England's bottle factories and art glass studios of the 1800's. Their "end-of-day" glass was tipped into the sea resulting in "multi's", or layered glass shards with a multitude of rich colors. "End-of-day" glass was any item made by the glass workers in their own time at the end of the day using up the remaining molten glass in the pots. It therefore tended to be a mixture of all sorts of colors. Another name for the same kind of item was a "frigger" or a "whimsy". Sometimes these were fun items, like walking sticks, rolling pins or animals made of glass. Sometimes they were items for the glass workers' own home, and sometimes they were for sale. It is these rare vintage antique sea glass gems that are featured in my current unique jewellery collection.
I select the most beautiful and perfect pieces of genuine sea glass from my collection for my jewelry designs. Each piece of sea glass is in it's original organic shape tumbled and recycled by mother nature. I do not tumble, color, cut or reshape any of the pieces as this would lower the value of the sea glass in the eyes of a collector and would no longer be genuine sea glass but manufactured glass to look like sea glass. I do drill a small hole in each piece and mount it the same way you would mount a pearl. I then choose gemstones and freshwater pearls that complement the colors in the sea glass to complete my jewelry design. I hand knot strands of pearls or gemstones and use wire wrapping techniques with sterling silver to construct each piece. My designs are harmonious and elegant, highlighting the unique beauty of each piece of genuine English sea glass.
