Ocean Jewelry

My OCEAN JEWELRY is about the beauty of shell. There are many I find attractive. The purple and white of quahog, the clam shell so revered by Wampanoag Wampum makers of the ancient past, and present day.

Which is the shell I used when starting out nearly 50 years ago. In my studio I turn the quahog into many shapes that I use in my OCEAN JEWELRY, as well as tiles...

I also use the conch or whelk, which looks like this,

The parts I use are orange and white, and I often slice the “tail” to produce a piece that looks like this...

The moon snail gives a beautiful spiral that can stand alone or be part of a multi-shell design... (this one includes quahog and scallop)

While the Holy in Nature made the shell, the flint and the ingenuity of our hands, we can legitimately make a shell bead and we can give it as an offering with our song.

While drilling the bead with a flint point, rotating the wrist back and forth like the world's seasons with the sun and stars measuring it on the horizon, one must speak and sing eloquent, delicious gift words out loud. In this way the bead becomes a tangible version of the sung offering; the drilling becomes a prayer. The prayer actually becomes the hole that you give to the Holy.

-Keeping Our Agreement with the Wild