Tag: International Sea Glass Association

Roxie Zwicker to Speak at the 2023 Festival

ISGA

The 17th Annual International Sea Glass Association Festivalwill be held July 29-30, 2023, on the Village Green of the Mystic Seaport Museum in Mystic, Connecticut. Learn more about attending this two-day sea and beach glass festival with talented artisans, knowledgeable speakers, the annual sea glass contest, and an opportunity to connect with fellow sea glass enthusiasts in a beautiful New England coastal setting.

New England Sea Glass Stories

Sunday, July 30, 2023

Roxie Zwicker

It’s hard to resist the lure of beachcombing in New England, with tales of shipwrecks and pirates dating back to the 17th century, where there are places to walk the beach and find relics of the past with stories to tell. Roxie has amassed a collection of over 4,000 beach finds, with some dating back to the 17th century. With a focus on Boston, Cape Cod, and the coast of New Hampshire she will share dramatic stories, images of her collection, and a virtual tour of her favorite spots.

New England’s Mystery Maven, Roxie Zwicker has been entertaining the locals, visitors from away, and curious souls since 1994. Her company New England Curiosities, located in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, has been offering award winning tours, presentations, and special events since 2002 based on New England folklore and mysterious history. Roxie’s TV appearances include New Hampshire Chronicle, New England Cable News, The History Channel, and the Travel Channel. Roxie is a published author of eight books that delve into the region’s history, legends, and lore, and her next book has a focus on New England sea glass. Wicked Curious Radio is Roxie’s podcast available on all major podcast platforms. Her extensive collection of sea glass takes up an entire room in her house and her website can be found at newenglandcuriosities.com.

Guy Fleming to Speak at the 2023 Sea Glass Festival

ISGA

The International Sea Glass Festival features educational presentations about sea and beach glass, local coastal information, and more. The Festival Committee is pleased to announce the first confirmed speaker for the 2023 festival, which will be held at Mystic Seaport Museum on July 29–30, 2023.

Zen Sea Glassing

Saturday, July 29, 2023

Guy Fleming

In a lifetime, change may occur quickly and sometimes very unexpectedly. After Guy lost all his worldly possessions in the severe Superstorm Sandy of 2012, he faced  another tragedy when he divorced shortly afterward. Searching for solace and new beginning in life, he began walking beach, discovering sea glass and an improved quality of life. Guy will share personal stories, Zen techniques and important ways to become an environmental steward.

Guy Cash Fleming has been expressing himself creatively ever since he sat down with a bass guitar as a teenager. He spent 34 years working as a chemical operator and instrumentation technician for a major pharmaceutical company, and he is also a musician, photographer, and amateur sea glass jeweler. Although he thought he’d never write a book, six months into retirement he suddenly had the urge and honored it wholeheartedly, with the release of For the Love of Sea Glass. Since then he’s walked more than 10,000 miles on the beaches of New Jersey, found in excess of 200,000 pieces of sea glass, and wrote two additional books, entitled Sea Glass for Miles, (a sea glass color/rarity guide), and Sea Glass Stories from the Beautiful New Jersey Coast, a coffee table book. Guy lives in New Jersey with his wife Yolanda, also an author, and their two young adult children.

2023 Sea Glass Festival Speaker Nominations

ISGA

The International Sea Glass Association’s Board of Directors and Festival Committee are currently accepting nominations for speakers for the 2023 Sea Glass Festival. The festival will be held at Mystic Seaport Museum on Saturday and Sunday, July 29–30, 2023, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Learn more about the festival ›

We are looking for speakers to present a talk of up to 45 minutes with time for Q&A after the presentation. Talks should focus on an aspect of sea and beach glass collecting, identification, history, or other information of interest to our community of enthusiastic sea and beach glass collectors. The presentation should be educational, not promotional.

Presenters will have their photo, bio, presentation description, and contact information on the Sea Glass Festival web page and in marketing materials.

The ideal presenter:

  • Is experienced, engaging, and comfortable speaking in front of a large audience.
  • Is passionate about sharing expertise on topics that include unique and historical sea and beach glass, remarkable collections, identifying sea and beach glass finds, or other related topics.
  • Is willing to travel to Mystic, Connecticut for the weekend of July 29th and 30th.

You can nominate someone you are interested in hearing from, or nominate yourself. Thanks for your time and we’re looking forward to hearing from you!

Nominate a speaker ›

UV Glass Mystery

North American Sea Glass Association

By Mary McCarthy, Education Chair, NASGA

UV sea glass flower frog

Recently at the Santa Cruz Sea Glass and Ocean Art Festival, NASGA Education Chair Mary McCarthy was on hand doing sea glass identification. A woman brought her necklace that included a UV piece with a unique curve. The size of the interior curve provided a clue: it was once a hole!

The source for the piece is a depression era vaseline glass flower frog. Flower frogs, nicknamed because they “sit in water,” feature holes that were used to hold flower stems. Often a two-piece item with a removable lid though sometimes made as one piece, water is placed inside to nourish the flowers. The identified vaseline glass, probably from the 1920s-40s was made with uranium and therefore glows under blacklight.

Unusual Finds Along Chesapeake Bay

North American Sea Glass Association

By Sharon Brubaker

Long, long ago, when dinosaurs roamed the earth and the skies were pierced with cries of enormous birds, something was happening geologically just below the water. Unusual formations in the silt and mud began to take shape that would, millions of years later, reveal themselves and wash up on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay. These “formations,” resembling hollow rock balls, tubes, ocarinas, and more avant-garde shapes, are created from sand, clay, and iron oxide.DSC_0555.jpgWhen my family and I first moved to the shores of the upper Chesapeake and roamed the beaches in search of beach glass, we also began to find peculiar, round, metal-like objects.  We felt certain they were a type of ammunition for guns used during the Revolutionary War because George Washington had munitions created in the Principio Iron Works just a heron’s flight across the bay, near the port of Charlestown.

Being new to the area and excited to show our finds to our neighbors, our newly found friends chuckled and told us that the strange formations were called ‘pop rocks,” small hollow stones of which our neighbors would toss into beach fires and watch them explode. Another neighbor told us that the formations (are) derived from ‘Indian paint pots” and that Native American tribes used the iron oxide inside the stones to paint their faces. But it was not until we met another neighbor, and now long-time friend, Alice Lundgren, that the mystery was solved. The formations, in all their various shapes, are known as “concretions.”

DSC_0543.jpg

Alice has a collection of well over a thousand concretions ranging in size from a quarter of an inch to about twelve inches, all of which she has gathered from the bay. Alice was a true inspiration to my family and me, and we soon joined forces to not only hunt for sea glass, but to eagerly search for concretions. These unusual rock formations date back to the late Cretaceous and Eocene eras.  Even more fascinating than the “pop rocks” are tubular rocks. The tubular concretions are iron oxide formations that reflect a pipe-like structure.

When we go exploring along our nearby beach, Alice, a seasoned concretion seeker, has the ability to spot the stone tubes instantly, yet the rest of us are not so fortunate, as the finds appear camouflaged to the untrained eye. Some of the concretions boast unique shapes, such as small cups, snowmen, and acorns while the tubular concretions often resemble coral, branches, and even small musical pipes (although they do not carry a tune))! Similar to sea glass, each concretion seems to carry its own story and personality.

Having been formed millions of years ago from sedimentary rock, concretions have been significant and mystical to many cultures. Some cultures believe them to be holy stones while other cultures believe the stones bring luck, or perhaps represent the divine feminine. However, theories of modern science suggest the concretions are fossils or meteorites.

As beachcombers, we are treasure-hunters.  We are always seeking the next great find. The Shard of the Year Contest, which is one of the highlights of the North American Sea Glass Association’s annual Festival, would be ideal opportunity to view both natural and manmade treasures (this year’s North American Sea Glass Festival will be held in Wildwood, New Jersey on October 27 – 28).

*Many thanks to Alice Lundgren for sharing her collection of concretions, and to Meredith Keating and Brandon Boas for their photography.