A Passion for Sea Glass

By C.S. Lambert

Down East Books, 2008

Hardcover, 160 pages, 200 photos, $30

A happy obsession with sea glass

Books showcasing the treasures found along the seacoast have been popular lately. Primarily, the format is photographs illustrating objects like beach stones, sea glass, or shells. The text itself may be sparse, means to evoking feelings. I like those books, like those by Josie Iselin. They resonate with me in a right-brained mode, stirring my emotions.

Now, with a somewhat different approach to the genre, A Passion for Sea Glass by Camden resident C.S. Lambert, with photographs by Amy Wilton, has just been released. It's a little more left-brained in orientation; that is, it is more instructive and explanatory, offering facts and critique, more objective than subjective.

I enjoyed this book too, most of all for its images, the many colorful photographs documenting the variety of ways sea glass and ceramic shards, as well as shells, china doll parts, stones, and antique bottles can become the stuff of art.

It is a book that introduces you to intrepid collectors who live mostly in New England (and primarily Maine), including some youngsters, jewelry designers, mobile makers, a gnome homebuilder, mosaic artists, window creators, and assemblage assemblers.

The book is organized by collector and collection, and includes a description of each individual, why they collect what they collect, what it means to them, and what they do with it. There are also some instructions included to help readers inspired by the art they see create some of their own.

Lambert has written about sea glass before, in a 2001 book, Sea Glass Chronicles: Whispers From the Past. She writes in the introduction to this new volume, " Why do otherwise rational people collect vast amounts of sea glass? What compels them to abandon time and convention to satisfy their commitment to an object that most consider valueless? These remarkable individuals-of all ages and walks of life-consider their sea glass collections central to their very existence. Most of the collectors I interviewed for this book described sea glass as a happy obsession."

Lambert, it would seem, shares that obsession. Her own passion has led her to introducing to us these kindred souls. Are these folks "irrational," as she perhaps sarcastically suggests, in seeing value in what others consider junk or refuse? These days, with a little education and societal support, many of us are slowly learning to redefine "usefulness" and "value." We can attribute to the funk of compost not a rotten quality but decomposition, garbage becoming gold. A vehicle's exhaust imbued with the aroma of greasy French fries can make us feel virtuous, not simply hungry. Old plastic, metal, and paper can be recycled into new plastic, metal, and paper. Hopefully, more and more of us are realizing that in a world of finite resources, finding ways to reuse cast-offs is important, not just as an aesthetic, but in support of a healthy economy and environment.

Lambert omitted any acknowledgment or tribute to seminal influences from other kindred spirits in the past. She gave no credit to artists who importantly broke that ground over the last hundred years or so with their own outré artwork using redefined objects; Joseph Cornell, Antonio Gaudi, Marcel Duchamp and Louis Tiffany come to mind. I think Lambert's goal with this book was to make the "art" look and feel informal, accessible; an artistic expression available to just about anyone. In other words, just like the found objects themselves.  

Click here to purchase the book.