Introducing Sea Shards™

Introducing Sea Shards™

I love the ocean, and feel deprived if I don't have at least 1 trip there yearly to renew and refresh. One of my favorite things to do there is to beach comb. I love picking up worn, rubbed and weathered pieces of flotsam and jetsam (always wanted to use those two words in a sentence!), especially those gnarled, worm-holed and barely recognizable as shells or driftwood.

Lately I've been using these sea shards in jewelry and bead kits and now I'm sharing them with you.

Click here to view all current Sea Shard™ auctions at JustBeads.
A SHARD is defined as:
1. broken piece of glass: a sharp broken piece of glass or metal
2. archaeology - piece of broken pottery: a fragment of pottery, especially one found at an archaeological site
3. zoology - animal's scale or shell: an animal's scales, shell, or other tough outer covering
4. insects beetle's outer wing: the outer wing covering of a beetle
[ Old English sceard "cut, notch" < Indo-European, "to cut"]

Beached Things

How akin to us are beached things -
Once a proud tree or a ship's bow,
Weathered and worried, only a fragment now;
Once a whole shell with creature inside,
Now only a piece, washed by the tide;
Tangled sea weed and fishing line,
Battered, bruised starfish entwined.

We so resemble beached things -
Once a proud life, humbled now,
Head once high, now deeply bowed;
Weathered and worried, no longer whole,
Marked by time and tide and woe;
Tangled emotions, bruised in heart,
Once-bright dreams, now dim and dark.

But the artist beholds beached things
With an exceptional sense of beauty in mind,
Stooping here and there a treasure finds:
The smooth shells only tumbling makes,
The weathered wood much drifting takes,
Thus God the artist sees our lives,
And wooing us, He ever strives
To take the tangled, twisted pieces and
Make them whole and beautiful again.