WELCOME TO THE SANDY SEASHELL

Have you ever been stuck at home and wished that you were at the beach?  I was doing just that one day when it hit me.

  Why not bring the beach home? 

That is the inspiration for this website.  For those of us that have a longing for the beach I created THE SANDY SEASHELL.  A way for us beach lovers to bring the beach home.  I hope that you enjoy my creations.  All of the pieces on this website are hand crafted in my American Home.  I build them in the spirit of the ocean.  Free, open and most of all beautiful.  Whether you just want to look or you order a piece for home I want to THANK YOU for sharing my love of the beach.  

Dolphins in Art & in Sea Shells

One of the most popular pieces of artwork that I sell at The Sandy Sea Shell is our dolphin mosaic.

We were inspired by the recurring themes of dolphins in art and how they stand out in our ideas about the romance of the sea. Humans have long had a fascination with Dolphins, particularly seafaring cultures. Some of the earliest known depictions of dolphins come from the island of Crete. The Minoans who lived there painted an astonishing fresco called the Akrotiri Dolphins depicting the animals in exquisitely preserved details.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Akrotiri_dolphins.jpg

Other cultures also have a fascination with Dolphins. The Dolphins of the river Ganges are said to be signs of the Goddess Ganga's descent from the heavens.

Dionysus the Greek God of Wine and Fertility was said to have been captured by pirates. He used his divine powers to scupper the ship but taking pity of the pirates who through themselves over board he transformed them into dolphins to help save drowning sailors.

This perhaps gets to the mystique of dolphins, how closely they resemble humans. The indigenous people of the Amazon believe that the Boto river dolphins are in fact shape shifters that can walk on land and have children with humans.

They are after all known to travel in packs with deep bonds of friendship and family between them. They chatter in a language who's sophistication is hard to grasp. They have brains as large as humans and engage in play and mourning behaviors.

It's not surprising then that humans find so much fascination in dolphins. They combine so much we recognize with an other worldly quality. That's what makes the seaside such a significant place and why I love sea shells. They offer a chance to bring something from that world back into our homes.

Arranging these mementos into the image of a dolphin, that creature that most reminds us of ourselves beneath the sea creates a wonderful reminder of the romance and mystery of the ocean.

Sea Shells In Art

At the sandy seashell we are enthralled by the natural beauty of the sea shell and its meaning to humans. Shells have an extraordinary history as part of our culture having been used for personal adornment art, and decoration well before written history.

Sea shell were being used as jewelry and traded or transported considerably inland as early as the stone age. Seashell necklaces were found at graves dating back to the stone age in the Dordogne valley more than 100 miles from the sea.

A common way to wear seashells as art of jewelry was to drill a small home in them and string them together. Because of the difficulty of drilling a hole without destroying the shell before the advent of modern tools early seashell artist got some help from nature. They would collect shells that had been born through by Naticidae a predatory family of snail than drill through shells in order to reach their food.

An example of setting shells into pattern or shape as we do here at the sandy seashell emerged in the Victorian era. "Sailors Valentines" were produced from the abundant and marvelous shells found upon Caribbean beaches. The shells were glue into elaborate patterns and symmetric designs like heart shapes. They were displayed in hinged boxes and often purchased by sailors to send back to loved ones and family in England.

The shell is a recurring symbol in art. One of the earliest representation is that of Aphrodite rising from the sea upon a scallop shell. It is has also had an influence upon architects and shells are a clear inspiration in the Sydney Opera House.

Shells have always been enduring symbols of the sea in human culture, prized for their beauty and incorporated into art. An interesting fact regarding the shells connection to the sea: Holding a sea shell to your ear is often said to let you hear the sound of the sea. What you are in fact hearing is the echo of your own pulse that sounds much like the washing of waves.

It's quite possible that you owe the very land beneath your feet to sea shells. Limestone is composed of crushed and compacted fragments of seashells. Like limestone shells can be dissolved by acid and sadly shell creating animals are under threat from Ocean acidification. As rising levels of Carbon Dioxide dissolve into the oceans they lower its pH. This makes it more difficult for so many organisms to build the beautiful shells that form their homes and our art.