{"id":43516,"date":"2016-02-11T18:23:38","date_gmt":"2016-02-11T23:23:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uncommongoods.com\/?p=43516"},"modified":"2016-05-09T11:30:52","modified_gmt":"2016-05-09T15:30:52","slug":"beach-glass-beauties-jeanne-kolleckers-marvelous-marble-pendants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/2016\/beach-glass-beauties-jeanne-kolleckers-marvelous-marble-pendants\/","title":{"rendered":"Beach Glass Beauties: Jeanne Kollecker’s Marvelous Marble Pendants"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was a magazine article that drew Jeanne Kollecker<\/a> to the arts. \u201cAbout five years ago, I read an article on beach glass in Lake Erie Living<\/a>,\u201d she explains. Intrigued, the Chardon, Ohio resident decided to search for some herself on the shores of Lake Erie near her house. \u201cI started hunting and it became an addiction. I knew right away I wanted to turn it into jewelry<\/a>. You can find a piece and just say, \u2018Wow, this would make a great pendant, or an earring,\u2019\u201d she says. She took classes on silversmithing at the local community college, and kept looking for beach glass (so named when it comes from fresh water; sea glass comes from salt water). \u201cThen,\u201d she says, \u201cI found my first marble.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The beach marble, to the uninitiated, is more or less the holy grail of lakeside treasures \u2014 made all the more desirable by the many legends of the object\u2019s origins (more on that below). \u201cThey\u2019re such a rare find that when you find one, you do a happy dance,\u201d says Jeanne, who manages a veterinary office by day. \u201cThe mystery of them is so much fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a proud member of The North American Sea Glass Association<\/a>, she never alters the state of the marbles she finds. \u201cI just wash them with warm soap and water.\u201d The various colors, sizes and finishes of the baubles make each of her pieces unique. \u201cEverything is one-of-a-kind\u201d she says. \u201cNo one else in the world is wearing the same piece.\u201d<\/p>\n

She takes us through her process \u2014 and behind the mystery of the marbles.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nWe have to know \u2014 where do beach marbles come from?<\/strong>
\nThere are a couple different theories. One is that they used to use them for ballasts on ships. They would fill barrels with them, go pick up the cargo, then dump the barrels before they returned. They\u2019re in all the Great Lakes and all over the world. England has the prettiest, they call theirs codds. In the Caribbean, they think rum runners may have used them.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Another theory is that some of them in Lake Erie are from a former marble factory in Akron, and they washed down the Cuyahoga River. There was also an amusement park in Cleveland called Euclid Beach<\/a> on Lake Erie. Some people say the plain white marbles are from that \u2014 shooter marbles that the kids used to send into the lake. There\u2019s a guy on Lake Michigan who finds a ton of marbles up there, and he thinks a lot of those come from shipwrecks. Lake Erie has a big history of shipwrecks too. There\u2019s a mystery behind each one, which is what makes it so fun. You find one and you don\u2019t know: Did this come from a shipwreck, or what?<\/p>\n

What\u2019s your harvesting process like?<\/strong>
\nI got my husband addicted too! We\u2019ll go every Saturday or Sunday until the lake freezes over for four-to-five hours. It\u2019s also our time together, you just get away from everything. Our cell phones don\u2019t work there, so it\u2019s nice because we\u2019re there all by ourselves \u2014 no one bothers us. And we bring our yellow lab Willow. She loves it! She ate a marble once, but it came out the next day.<\/p>\n

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How many do you find at a time?<\/strong>
\nIt depends on where we go. There\u2019s one particular beach we like to go to, and one day there we found 24 marbles! Other days, we\u2019ll find nothing. It\u2019s very strange how they wash up. They\u2019re more rare than beach glass. And it usually takes 30-to-40 years for them to become jewelry quality \u2014 the frostier the better. It means they\u2019ve been tumbling around longer.<\/p>\n

Does it get competitive among collectors?<\/strong>
\nOh yes! Very competitive. People will always ask you [at a fair or convention] where you go. But I can\u2019t tell people! My husband and I stumbled upon a beach where no one else goes, and that\u2019s where we find most of them. You have to go through the woods and climb down a cliff. There have been some situations where I\u2019ve said, I can\u2019t believe we\u2019re doing this \u2014 this is dangerous! But it\u2019s a constant treasure hunt. Sea glass is becoming huge now. My husband made me a rake to go through the sand and pebbles, and some lady told me I was cheating!<\/p>\n

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Once you bring them home, what\u2019s your process for turning them into jewelry?<\/strong>
\nUsually I wrap all the marbles, fitting the silver around them. Then, I\u2019ll match the bails I want to use for each piece \u2014 I use a few different ones. Then, I solder all of that and file it down. Last, I\u2019ll sand down fine lines or scratches in the silver, then buff it, but not the marble.<\/p>\n

Because of how I set the marbles, they can be seen from either side \u2014 everyone seems to love that. Some people will drill a groove when they make theirs, but you ruin the integrity of the marble. I don\u2019t do that \u2014 I set the silver around it firmly. The marble is not drilled or cut. It\u2019s not altered in any way, which people love. Sometimes, people will send a marble they\u2019ve found to set, and I\u2019ll do a custom order.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s your studio like? What tools do you use?<\/strong>
\nMy studio is in a room in my home. I have two workbenches and another table where I do my shipping from. My dremel is my most important tool. That\u2019s what I use to buff and cut my silver and drill the glass when I make earrings. When I\u2019m working, I lay all my pieces of jewelry out. I guess I love to look at all of them together. I can pair up earrings that way, too, to see what pieces of beach glass go together. Or the marbles I pull out to make pendants or bracelets.<\/p>\n

\"Beach<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What\u2019s your favorite part about making beach glass and beach marble jewelry?<\/strong>
\nThe positive feedback you get from each piece you make. To see someone else wearing it, or when they buy it from you and they love it. The satisfaction is like, Wow. It just makes me happy.<\/p>\n

So you\u2019ll keep hunting for the marbles and making jewelry?<\/strong>
\nAbsolutely, it\u2019s a very relaxing hobby. It\u2019s the funniest thing, I grew up here and never knew about it, then I read the article and was like, \u2018Wow.\u2019 The fun part is that everything is one of a kind. Hopefully Lake Erie will keep spitting them up!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The beach marble is a coveted lakeside treasure, made even more desirable by the many legends of its origins. See how these “gems” are transformed into beautiful jewelry. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":221,"featured_media":44882,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[743],"tags":[1946,80,1144,648],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43516"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/221"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43516"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43516\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44926,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43516\/revisions\/44926"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}