By Mary McCarthy, NASGA Education Chair
It’s always fun to find a match of a sea glass find with a fellow beachcomber in another part of the world, and of course to discover the history of our finds.
I often have many beachcombed finds on my phone; there are up to 10,000 photos stored there at any given time “for sometime.” One day on Instagram I saw a post from Jody in California that she found a beautiful sun-purple figural bust:
It immediately reminded me of something I found that I had taken a photo of, but hadn’t posted yet because I hadn’t identified what it could have been. It had an odd block shape at the corner that had confused me, the seeming headless perfect companion to hers:
I recognized Jody’s as a powder jar lid, “Wendy” by Fenton and sent her a photo of the original:
So, I did what I always do in a case like this, I consulted the “man upstairs,” from whom I have learned all things sea glass identification and apprenticed for years. I texted the photo to Richard LaMotte, founder of the North American Sea Glass Association and author of Pure Sea Glass, who doesn’t live far from me and in fact once tried to rescue a wayward kayak paddle off a shoreline for me!
Richard said he thought my find was a Victorian glass bookend, something that hadn’t occurred to me and something I had never seen before. Now I had an answer and could post the headless find.
Jody and I are hoping to unite the headless sea glass couple at an upcoming sea glass festival in California to get a photo and unite their coast to coast matchup!
Q: Do you plan to exhibit at the upcoming festival in Wildwood, New Jersey, and is there a particular NASGA festival that stands out as a favorite, or a memorable experience associated with a previous NASGA festival?
A: I had a jar of beach stones in my office when a co-worker saw it and asked why not sea glass. She explained what it was and where I could find it on the beach. Our next vacation turned into a beach glass expedition with the entire family involved. From then on finding beach glass became an obsession that we all still enjoy and have spread that thrill to several friends. It never gets boring and we have a very large collection of glass and pottery collected from the beaches of Cape Cod.
Q: Are you also a sea glass collector (or do you solely enjoy working on your craft or skill)? If you are a collector, can you tell us about your collection, and is difficult to part with some of your creations or favorite pieces?
Q: Can you share some of the joys and challenges of your business and craft?
Doug Watson has been involved with the game of marbles for over 20 years. He won the 1999 National Marbles Tournament at age 14. With a team of other mibsters, he traveled to England to compete at the World Marbles Tournament. Doug has competed in the U.S. Marble Championship, Rolley Hole Tournament in Tennessee, the Former National Champions Tournament, and the NMT alumni tournament held every 5 years in Wildwood. In more recent years, he has taken to the microphone on the Wildwood beach as emcee for the annual National Marbles Tournament in June; he’s also a committee member, continuing the tournament’s 95-year tradition. Doug also runs a local marble club in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, where he coaches kids between the ages of 7-14 to learn the competitive side of playing marbles. This year he coached the National Champion runner-up. He is an avid collector of antique and contemporary glass artists marbles.
Mary McCarthy is Education Chair and a Board Member of the North American Sea Glass Association and Co-Executive Director of The Sea Glass Center nonprofit. She is a bestselling author, Reiki master, and lifelong journalist and editor including work for Salon.com, the Washington Post, Philadelphia Inquirer, Baltimore Sun, Glassing magazine, Chesapeake Family and splicetoday.com. She is the founder of thehealingbeach.com. In addition to many conferences, she has lectured at American University, University of Maryland, The Writer’s Center, and she teaches at Inn at Perry Cabin in St. Michaels, MD. She is a mother of four and beachcombs and kayaks on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.
Richard LaMotte is the author of the award-winning book Pure Sea Glass and a sequel titled The Lure of Sea Glass. He was a co-founder and past-president of the North American Sea Glass Association. Richard works and lives near the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland where he began sea glass hunting in 1999. In 2002 he began researching glass history for a lecture which led to extensive research into glass colors, as well as the physics and chemistry behind the frosted glass found along the shoreline. In 2006 Pure Sea Glass was awarded first place for non-fiction in Writer’s Digest 13thAnnual Self-Published Book Competition. Richard and his book have been featured in The Washington Post, on Martha Stewart Living TV, Coastal Living, Parade Magazine, Baltimore Sun, The Boston Globe, Delaware Beach Life, on NPR and Maryland Public Television.
