Seaside Collections

At the moment I’m going through all of my closets and drawers, cleaning off shelves and pulling out boxes in anticipation of moving (again) in August. In the process I’m finding a lot of things that I’m not really using but am having trouble parting with. For example, my grandmother passed away last year and left behind so many great collections of art supplies, vintage boxes and papers, and lots of seashells. My grandparents collected shells from all over the world, large and small, and brought a handful home every time they came back from the beach in Charleston, SC, often bucket-fulls.

Ultimately, a large bag of their seashell collection was left with me and up until now it’s been sitting without seeing much use. I found it last week while cleaning out and reorganizing some of my closet drawers and decided to make use of the collection. Chances are I won’t be using most of the shells, but I found it hard to part with them without feeling like I was giving up part of my family memories. So instead I laid them out on the floor and picked out a hanful of shells that I really liked and some I thought I may be able to use in the future. The rest I photographed in the sunlight to hang up and see all the time.