My Biggest Critic

Coffee Cup Cam

I’ve been a jewelry artist for over a decade. I’ve taken group classes, invested in private tutoring sessions and spent countless hours in my own studio. Yet, I still find myself disappointingly thinking that the jewelry I make is fairly lackluster. In fact, I’ve created pieces convinced that it would never sell only to have someone fall totally in love with it.

I am, by far, my biggest critic; and have often been reprimanded by friends for saying something like, “Oh, I’m really not an artist.” Or, “I’m not that good at making jewelry.” After such a long time, I still rarely find myself pleased with one of my own creations.

Except, when it comes to the sailboats. Our sailboat line has been the most fun! I love sitting down with piles of glass, trying to pair up pieces. I’ve really enjoyed the whole process of sawing, torching, and sanding. Slowly, the piece comes to life as I work, and with each finished product I'm certain that I've just made my favorite sailboat.

Finished Sailboats

Some final outcomes are more abstract than others, but I’ve found that is all part of the allure. The ocean doesn’t always send me perfect pieces to work with, but sometimes customers prefer the imperfect. Kim returned a sailboat that her husband bought her so she could get one that was less picture-perfect. Yah, she thought my jewelry was too perfect.

It also doesn’t hurt my confidence that the sailboats tend to sell right away (or sail away, cheesy pun totally intended). It’s wonderful to hear stories of others who are falling in love with the sailboats, too. Like, the woman who bought one for her daughter… Then one for herself. And I just shipped her a third sailboat pendant for her other daughter.

Contact: Lindsay at West Coast Sea Glass
253.302.2447

I’d love to be able to spend my day just making sailboats, and you can support my efforts. Feel free to email me your favorite pairing (at right) so I can get started on your one-of-a-kind sailboat.

Creating Sea Glass Jewelry - A Day in the West Coast Sea Glass Studio

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The West Coast Sea Glass studio is a haven of color and creativity. We started out traversing the shores of the Pacific ocean decades ago. We've found rare pieces in every color over the course of our lifetimes. At left: A remote beach on Vancouver Island, Canada.

Our collection is decades old and most people have never seen a collection with as much color, history and variety. So we work hard to explain that ours is not average. It's an older collection, pieced together, one gem at a time, over decades.


Once back at the studio, we always place our pieces in baskets by color category and according to which body of water it was found along. At right: Baskets by color. More about color HERE.

When it's time to design a jewelry creation, just the right piece of sea glass is chosen. Today a very rare, true turquoise piece at left is chosen. The silver is measured, fitted around the piece, cut, soldered and sanded all by hand in our silver studio. No two pieces of sea glass are exactly the same, so the metal smithing process takes time and care.  Some days, we can spend eight hours at the bench grinder, sanding metal into shapes that fit the sea glass pieces.

After all the designing and fitting, the jewelry is polished with special tools, then polished again by hand with jewelry papers or cloth to make either a brushed finish to the metal or a silky, smooth shine.

Each creation is stamped with our signature "sea Star" mark on the back. This ensures its authenticity and workmanship and guarantees you it's a high qualiiy, West Coast Sea Glass piece. 

Left: A sterling silver and sea glass ring, hand made at our metal working station.

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2010 Sea Glass Festival - Cape Cod, Hyannis, Massachusetts

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The 2010 Sea Glass Festival

will be held October 9th and 10th at the Cape Cod Resort and Conference Center

in Hyannis, MA.

This colorful, two-day, sea glass event is filled with exhibits, vendors, lectures and the Shard Of The Year Contest.

Sponsored by the North American Sea Glass Association, it is open to the public and to the world! Collectors from around the globe will converge on Cape Cod for this festive, jovial event that's dedicated to sea glass

    Sea Glass Jewelry Here

Experience shard identification, oodles of artists , private collections, bottle experts, authors, photographers, and of course beautiful sea glass jewelry.

More on the Sea Glass Festival

Art and Sea Glass Save Lives!

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As I drive through the hip, coastal art communities here along the Pacific coast, I often catch a glimpse of that famous bumper sticker proclaiming “Art Saves Lives”! Can it really? I ponder. Why yes! The music in my car stereo attests to this truth as it lifts my soul. The colorful mural I pass boosts up the otherwise ruddiness of the parking lot I pull into. I stop and slip into a gallery on this drizzly, looming afternoon. Dry and quiet now, my surroundings include; an abstract watercolor, a tribal mask and near the window, a teal art-glass vase spilling color up and out and overflowing into the gallery. My world has become a more beautiful place and this is just the perspective from my eyes!

Whether you’re an artist or someone who makes art supplies available to the art community, you are making the world a more beautiful place … and saving lives. How? According to a recent Washington State University article entitled “Why Do We Need Art”, we see that art has been a part of human culture, expression and survival for all of human existence. Ellen Dissanayake, affiliate professor at the UW school of music and author of “What is Art For” says “We don’t have a verb ‘to art’, but what are artists, dancers, poets doing? They’re taking the ordinary and making it special. You create a bowl out of mud but you don’t leave it ordinary, you make it special by engraving a pattern or figures on it. A poet takes ordinary words and makes them special. An artist places an activity or an artifact in a realm different from the everyday.”



That very artful expression is something that cultures throughout history have needed to survive. We need art as an avenue to express something in us and we need art in order to make exceptional, something that’s otherwise ordinary in our world. In a sense, art saves our lives from stagnation, meaninglessness and the ordinary. As Picasso has said "Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life."

Are you an artist? My guess is that there are times when you feel you must create to live, not because you need to sell something or to create an income (a nice benefit from living in a world that appreciates and understands the need for art) but because to create is to live and to live is to create!



A recent Seattle Times photographer viewed a piece of mine. Excitedly, he asked me to stand so he could photograph me with it. “That’s a work of art”! He proclaimed. I garnered more mileage and “life” out of his appreciation than I do when I sell a print of it. Why? Because even in a tough economy, while some people may perceive art as a “luxury item”, artists will still create, not always because it may stir up income but because we have for thousands of years and like those hip coastal community, car bumper stickers attest; Art Saves Lives!

Rare Red Sea Glass - Beach Combed Seaglass

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Red sea glass. It is said to be the most coveted of the many sea glass colors. Where does it come from? Why is it so rare? And can it be found any more? At left: A rare handful of smooth, rare red gems. Photo copyright: Mary Beth Beuke.

After years of studying the thousands of pieces in our own, rare collection and after interviewing and seeing hundreds of other collector's compliations from across the globe, it's a proven fact that red is one of the most difficult colors of sea glass to find. It's been said to take a lifetime of hunting to find just one piece. At right: A Pacific Ocean red on a rocky beach right where I found it at low tide. Copyright: Mary Beth Beuke

The reason why we have more than just a couple pieces in our collection is because ours is an older collection from decades of searching that was done long before the recent popularity of sea glass. Today such quantities and and quality is unheard of.

Why is red sea glass so rare? One reason is that red glass was not a common color in glass blowing. The additives needed to make the reds and orange glass colors were expensive and difficult to come by 100 years ago. In fact, bright red glass was never really mass produced in bottle form ever in the US. Many pieces that we have originated from such obscure items as pre-1950's car tail lights or boat signal lights. Below: Rare red on coral and lava - Ka Lae, Hawaii - copyright: Mary Beth Beuke

There is a section of the Pacific Ocean that is so infamous for it's hundreds of shipwrecks between the 1,700's and mid 1,900's that it is called the Pacific Ocean Graveyard. Hundreds of pieces that we've gathered come from these very beaches. Above: A rare marine "hurricane distress lamp" from the mid 1800's. From a Vancouver, Island Canada shipwreck site. Photo copyright: West Sea Co.

For More About Red Sea Glass: Click Here

For More About Sea Glass Color Rarity: Click Here

Sea Glass Hunting - In Hawaii

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I have returned from a wonderful nine days in Hawaii. Though most days were devoted to sunning, snorkelling and boogie boarding, I did hike about five miles one day in 86 degree heat to sea glass hunt.

With 40 plus mph offshore winds, the waves were high and the beaches were well churned up. This makes for prime conditions to wash fresh beachglass debris shoreward.

I hit a several mile stretch of beach that was virtually uninhabited. Though remnants of ancient homesteads built of stacked lava rock, dotted the dry, barren coastline, no one lived there now. Below me along the shoreline, cove after cove was carved with black rock that thousands of years before was molten and had rushed downward to the sea from a volcanic eruption. Tidepools had formed in the crevices of the cooled lava rock and occasionally an oasis of white sand and coral rested there in a patch. A spot of color (usually soft teal blues and seafoam greens) would stand out against the pebbly background. Sea glass! It beckoned as a smoothed, rare treasure amidst this harsh environment.

Many of these pieces were clearly from ship refuse; bottles jars, and even fishing floats that were smashed against the rough shoreline.

When one spends a lifetime along the water's edge hunting for sea glass, one also enjoy the benefits of the other treasures and the wildlife that the sea offers.

About mid-day, the protected, Pacific Sea Turtles would gradually make their way toward shore to spend an hour or two warming themselves on the sand. On my last day there, I was also blessed to be able to view two humpback whales breaching in a bay.

Ancient, carved tiki statues lined one beach I visited. I learned that over 500 years ago, this beach was a haven with religious significance for those seeking refuge and safety. There are many stories told of Hawaiians who swam for miles just to reach this very beach.

After a good 8 days on those sunny beaches, I began to get a bit crispy which, even for my olive skin is often difficult to do. Note the beach chair, poised and ready in the back of the car in case I happen upon the perfect beach.

All photos and text: Mary Beth Beuke - West Coast Sea Glass


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