Part Two – Artist Interview Kyra Crilly

Here’s Part Two of my interview with jewelry designer Kyra Crilly of GhostShip. Kyra uses vintage sea glass, a found item, to craft gorgeous necklaces, earrings, and bracelets. GhostShip, Crilly’s shop is located at Etsy – a cyber mall for handmade, one of a kind items. If you missed Part One of the interview, then please click here.

PBN: The piece with the red glass…how do you go about designing a piece?

Kyra Crilly: Red sea glass is the rarest of them all. There is much speculation where red glass comes from, as commercial red glass is not produced much anymore. A red piece is found only once in five thousand pieces – and the thought is that it came from either ships signal lights or old vintage car lights (modern day car lights are made of plastic). Some sea glass collectors can go an entire lifetime without finding a red piece.

When I sit down to design a piece of jewelry, I first carefully inspect the sea glass I am about to use – I look at its shape, colour and any markings it may have.  The irregular pitting or ‘patina’ is made from nature – being tossed in the tides amongst the pebbles and rocks, which can’t be duplicated by a rock tumbler or hand sanding.

I try to highlight the beauty of each piece by using adornments such as pearls and filigree which have an element of nature and an ‘antiqued’ feeling about it.

Since sea glass is vintage, with each piece being at least decades old in age -  I naturally veered toward a vintage, Victorian style in my designs. I guess I’m just a romantic at heart.

And I love the fact that sea glass is eco-friendly – I wanted to show people that recycled jewelry doesn’t have to be expensive or utilitarian. I also love taking on custom designs, especially if someone has found their own sea glass pieces that they would like to use – as it’s the beach combing process that makes these gems so special.
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Thanks Kyra. I have really enjoyed learning about your process and I hope that the readers have enjoyed it, as well.

Image credit: GhostShipat Etsy.com