1889 October | November 2018

artist in residence
After two decades of research, Beuke is an expert in identifying
the glass in her collection. “History is really important in a sea
glass collection, and that’s defined by color,” she said. “Glass was
manufactured in many different colors 100 years ago than it is
today, and back then the most common bottle colors in the U.S.
were clear, brown and forest or emerald green. I consider these
rarer colors to be of more value, and in my jewelry I only use the
best pieces.”
There’s lots of detective work in sea-glass collecting and Beuke
loves the thrill of finding something rare and identifying where it
came from. One time she found a piece of glass belonging to an
early-1900s walking cane. “For me, this becomes a process of glass
archaeology and historical investigating,” she said. “It’s not just a
broken piece of a 1970s bottle.”
Beuke has an office in the Olympic Peninsula and a studio in
Tacoma. Together with Teresa Crecelius and Lindsay Furber—a
longtime friend with whom she co-founded West Coast Sea
Glass—she makes rings, earrings, necklaces, bracelets, cufflinks
and a few pieces of home décor.
Each piece of jewelry created by the three women is accompanied
by a card indicating when and where the sea glass was found, and
any information about its historical relevance. Her customers
love knowing pertinent information about their sea glass jewelry,
and she often fields requests for a piece of jewelry made with sea
glass from a particular beach or coastline. Sometimes customers
will find sea glass on a beach during a vacation and mail it to her,
requesting she use it in a piece of unique jewelry as a memento of
their trip.
Over the course of her life, Beuke has amassed one of the world’s
largest and rarest collections of sea glass fragments. She displays
them during the lectures she delivers at museums and libraries,
educating people about their origins. She keeps her jewelry
business collection separate from her personal collection.
These days, however, the more historical pieces of sea glass are
becoming increasingly hard to find. “It’s been four years since I
found anything of historical significance in the U.S.,” she said with
a tinge of regret in her voice. “The really rare pieces are either
buried at sea or they’ve been found, and some of the best places
on the planet that used to have rare sea glass forty years ago just
don’t have it anymore.”
In terms of sea glass jewelry, that means making twelve pairs
of blue earrings, requiring twenty-four pieces of sea glass, can
FROM TOP Mary Beth Beuke
heads West Coast Sea Glass.
She creates sea glass rings,
as well as other jewelry with
the glass.
be next to impossible. “We have to rely on the pieces we have
here, rather than foraging for new pieces,” she explained. “And
some colors we simply can no longer provide, like aqua blue,
which is much rarer than a green piece of sea glass.”
On a hot day in July, Beuke headed to her silver studio to
complete a five-piece cobalt blue bracelet made of sea glass
from old medicine bottles. A silversmith and photographer by
trade, she has effortlessly merged her talents, creating stunning
pieces of art in both her jewelry and photography. Home is a
twenty-second walk from the beach, so she gets to indulge her
love of beach wandering almost daily.
“It’s been such a joy connecting with people over sea glass,”
she said. “I truly have the best job in the world.”
“History is really important in a sea glass collection, and that’s
defined by color. Glass was manufactured in many different colors
100 years ago than it is today. … I consider these rarer colors to
be of more value, and in my jewelry I only use the best pieces.”
— Mary Beth Beuke, of West Coast Sea Glass
OCTOBER | NOVEMBER 2018 1889 WASHINGTON’S MAGAZINE 35