Pieces of broken glass can be an eye sore, causing danger to animals and people, effecting the eco-system and damaging the wonderful world around us.  When naturally tumbled by the sea, glass transforms into something quite different and in my case a resource around which my pictures are based.

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Sea glass forms from glass that has been naturally weathered by the sea over a period of 20 to 40 years and sometimes as long as 200 years, acquiring its characteristically smooth texture and shape. Sea glass often begins its life as shards of broken glass that are tumbled and ground by the sea for years rounding off the edges and creating a frosted appearance.  

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The most common colours of sea glass are white, brown and green usually originating from bottles containing beverages, clear plates, glasses, and windows. Less common colours include jade and amber, lime green and ice and soft coloured blues.   Rarer still are purples and cornflower blues (which feature in some of my pieces and maybe from poison bottles), and aqua.  Some of the extremely rare colours that I have found and use in my pictures are pinks, yellow (often from 1930s vaseline containers), turquoise (often from tableware and art glass), red (often from Schlitz bottles, tableware, car lights).  According to Wikipedia the rarest of all is orange, found once in every 10,000 pieces.  I find it fascinating when collecting and working with sea glass to consider the history of each piece of glass; the fact that each one started life in a very different form, whether a poison bottle or an ornate vase.

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The glass I use for each picture is hand collected by me and my family, all from beaches within the UK.  Much of the glass I use is collected from beaches in Cornwall and the beautiful Isles Of Scilly, with a rich history of shipwrecks.  I regularly visit Seaham in County Durham specifically to search for some of the more vibrant colours I use and some of the rare two-toned pieces of glass.   Seaham was home to a Victorian bottle factory and this explains why it attracts visitors from across the world specifically to search for sea glass. 

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