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| Shaped in the sea, shining in the sun By Stacy Trevenon [ stacy@hmbreview.com ] Published/Last Modified on Wednesday, July 23, 2008 3:50 PM PDT If light strikes it just right, sea glass can shine like droplets of water or glow like light refracted in the ocean that shaped it. Through the transforming fingers of sand, salt water and time, shards of glass become things of beauty that find their way into art, such as the abstract paintings of Half Moon Bay Review business manager and Montara resident Kim Ritner, or pendants and earrings made by Thousand Oaks jewelry maker Aileen Cabral, Ritner’s partner in their “Art of Sea Glass” business. They might even get on television, like the third of a three-part “Treasure Hunter: Kirsten Gum,” filmed Thursday at Ritner’s home. “They start as sand, become glass. Someone used them. Then they are broken, get thrown away, go back into the ocean, and are transformed into something else,” mused Ritner, looking over a display of pendants, earrings, rings and bracelets made with sea glass she and Cabral found. They are a rainbow of color: more common green or brown to rarer blue, red, yellow or orange. Those colors tell stories. The blue glass probably comes from Emerson Bromo Selzer jars of the 1920s and ‘30s, the red from brake lights on cars, the women say. Some of it is “flashed glass,” created when glass shapes were put inside clear glass to form layers so that the viewer sees depths or stripes under its soft matte surface. “Flashed glass takes 25 to 100 years to get that patina,” said Cabral. “You don’t want it to be glossy.” (Anything other than a typical matte finish is taboo to the North American Sea Glass Association, to which Ritner and Cabral belong. The two have vowed never to “cheat” by putting glass through tumblers. “It doesn’t have the same patina,” said Ritner scornfully.) On Thursday, two cameramen, an audio technician, producer Stacy Waters and host Gum, rearranged Ritner’s living room into a studio. A large, multicolored Ritner painting — inspired, she said, by the colors of sea glass — became a backdrop before which Cabral showed Gum how to make a silver setting for a pendant with two pieces of green sea glass, and Gum made a pendant with a blue piece. Several days of adventure went into this program. “We’re always looking for a treasure,” said Waters. “We try to build that into our shows.” The treasure this time was sea glass, which doesn’t start out as the pretty pieces in the jewelry. It begins as trash — bottles tossed in seaside dumps or dropped by beachgoers and swept out to sea. There the pieces remain for decades, polished by sand and tides and given a faded patina by sun, salt and other elements of ocean water. The glass in her jewelry is 50 to 80 years old, said Cabral. She was already a jewelry maker who worked with beads until “I needed something different,” and longtime friend Ritner provided it. Ritner’s bond with sea glass began in childhood, with a bowl full of sea glass belonging to her grandmother in Northridge. “I was always fascinated with it,” said Ritner. “I would look at it and wonder, where did that come from? How did it get into the ocean?” Drawn to art and photography, Ritner began collecting sea glass on Coastside and Bay Area beaches until she had large jars filled with it. Then she showed them to her friend. “She’s totally hooked now,” laughed Ritner. Cabral began experimenting with silver, and found that sea glass worked well with “precious metal clay” comprised of .999 percent silver (as opposed to sterling at .927 percent, she said,) water and a bonding agent. When her plans to take a class in silver jewelry were derailed by flu, she taught herself. Starting by determining if a piece of glass is “jewelry grade” by touching it and holding it up to silver to “see if (the color) pops,” as Ritner put it, Cabral creates settings of starfish, sand stars, fish, turtles or shells for pendants, rings, and bracelets. She and Ritner make the rounds of craft and jewelry shows, hold home shows and base their business, “Art of Sea Glass,” on the jewelry and Ritner’s paintings and photos. The pair “painstakingly walk the beaches of California to pick up one piece at a time,” said Ritner. “For me, it’s almost a meditation, just to go out on the beach and pick up glass, looking for a rare color.” “Part of it is the thrill of finding it,” said Cabral. “I go to the beach, find something, take it home and make something, and wear it next day. How cool is that?” Cool enough to come to the attention of Indigo Films, the production company that produces “Treasure Hunter.” Production of the three-part show began July 15, when Gum and crew kayaked from Clipper Cove Marina in San Francisco to Treasure Island to hunt sea glass. It continued the following day on a hidden beach in Davenport to which they rappelled down “not a cliff-hanger, but a very steep” cliff, said Waters. After “playing chicken with the waves” under the eye of a watchful Park Service ranger, they were rewarded by finding “a very different type of glass,” Waters said. (Different glass on different beaches is typical, said Ritner.) The segment concluded on Thursday, with a paddleboarding lesson for Gum in Pillar Point Harbor and the jewelry-making lesson in Ritner’s home. Gum said she enjoyed “playing chicken with the sea — such an adrenaline rush” and found paddleboarding “great” but challenging: She kept her balance at first “but it wasn’t until I got cocky at the end” that she plopped into the water. Visiting the Coastside, she said, “was killer.” The segment is tentatively scheduled to air over the Travel Channel in December. By that time, Ritner and Cabral will be making the rounds of holiday shows in the Bay Area and Southern California. They’re also open to home shows and custom work. (For information, contact their Web site of artofseaglass.com.) The two women have tips for beachgoers on the lookout for sea glass. Early morning, when the tide is low, or after a storm, are good times to look. Pay special attention to wet sand where there tends to be “sea gravel,” which has just been deposited by waves. |