The world is her oyster
By Kirsti Scott
Margie Frew is a beachcomber and artist living in Chiswick, a district in West London, England. Raised on a lake in Michigan, Margie has been a beachcomber ever since she was a child vacationing in Florida. After living in both the south of France and New York City—next to the water in both places, of course—Margie moved to London in 1999 and has been there ever since. Now, her happy place is walking along the River Thames multiple times a week—she’s looking forward to finding her first clay pipe or an intact old bottle.
Margie collects shells and sea glass. She got her daughter involved in the hobby at a young age, and for years they made sea glass art and jewelry for themselves or as little gifts for friends. Margie says she’s just starting to get into mudlarking.
Margie’s favorite place to beachcomb is Oban, on the west coast of Scotland, where her in-laws live. She says it’s great for sea glass, and she can beachcomb there at most times of the year. She’s got a few favorite treasures, like the fabulous shells she found from her childhood, but her best is a tiny gold ring she found on a beach in France. Margie beachcombs most often with her daughter, usually when they travel together. They’ve visited the U.S., Scotland, Poland, France, and many other places. They both enjoy the quiet time to talk, and find interesting objects as they walk along the shore.
Margie has always been creative. In her twenties while living in New York City, she made mosaic vases and trays as gifts for her friends. She would dry old roses and hand paint terracotta pots and sell the arrangements at flea markets to supplement her income. “I have spent my life dipping in and out different kinds of artistic attempts, and flea markets, vintage shops, and car boot sales have offered me many opportunities to upcycle and transform old objects through the years.”
Margie sells her art through her Instagram page all the time. She also sells at a variety of other shops throughout the U.K. and the United States. Though Margie says she always tinkered with sea glass for personal gifts, it wasn’t until the pandemic that she started using oyster shells as her main creative outlet.
After her daughter was born, Margie retrained from 20 years working in television news production to become an ESL (English as second language) teacher. She says she needed to tap into her theatrical and artistic background to create lessons that could communicate meaning beyond words. This gave her flexibility and encouraged her to use her creative side. She then worked as a marketing and business development consultant.
While on vacation visiting her parents back in Michigan during the first COVID-19 lockdown, Margie happened upon a painted oyster shell in a shop window. Margie asked her nieces—one with a degree in art—how they could make something similar. Coincidentally, the next day, they stumbled upon a yard sale where someone was selling 20 giant scallop shells for $5. Margie asked her nieces to raid their art supplies, and they spent the next week developing a technique together.
Margie calls her newfound artistic venture her midlife crisis, as after COVID she did not want to go back to trade shows to find new clients to replace the ones that went out of business. Nearing 60, she just wanted to slow down and make something creative of her own. After creating a massive surplus of art pieces, Margie suggested to her husband that she could try selling them for a time. She went to her local decor shop and the owner took 15 on consignment. “She offered to buy them, but I would have felt guilty if they had not sold so I said for her to pay me if they sold. A week later she called me, and she had sold 12 of the 15 and needed more!” It grew from there.
Margie much prefers her new business and creative outlet, as it gives her the flexibility to see her loved ones more often. “The lovely Jane Fonda has described life in three acts: ages 0 to 30 is Act I, then 31 to 60 is Act II, and 61 to 90 is Act III. I like to think I am creating a pathway to ease into Act III.”
When she’s not on the Thames or hard at work making her art, Margie loves to cook, entertain friends, go to car boot sales, antique fairs, and estate sales—as well as traveling as much as she can. Right now, Margie is also renovating a cottage in the small Scottish town Dornoch where her husband grew up. They are creating a cozy place to spend some retirement time, and they will also rent it out to the golfers who come to play on the world-famous Royal Dornoch golf course. It works out well, because Margie also gets most of her shells from Loch Creran, at an oyster farm she works with.
Her process: “I start by spending a few hours hand cleaning and soaking the shells then laying them out to dry in the sun. I run them through a dishwasher cycle if they are particularly stinky and then prepare them for painting,” Margie explains. “They get a coat of gold on the outside, white on the inside, and then I separate them by size.” She uses anything from old maps, old art books, vintage children’s books as well as tissue paper, napkins, or wrapping paper to find the right image for her shells. “I often use iridescent inks to paint the insides and cut beautiful botanical art out of books or famous art by Louis Wain or William Morris. I have used art from van Gogh and Degas as well as enamel paints to create new and different looks. In Venice a few months ago, I bought three pieces of handmade paper that I have carefully used on just the right shell.” She puts a podcast on, lays out her adhesive and a box of images she has cut out, as well as boxes of paper to use, and work to find the right shape for the right size shell. “At the end I hand gild the edges and then seal it all with a food-safe resin so the larger shells can be used for chocolates, nuts, dips, jewelry, salt and pepper, or just decoratively.”
Though Margie says the amazing shapes in nature do inspire her, she gets most of her inspiration from her family and friends. She likes to imagine her loved ones looking at a shell on a bedside table and smiling. “I started making the découpaged shells to send to friends in lockdown and remind them that someone was thinking of them and that no one was alone,” she says. “I wanted to open the door for a conversation and to close the gulf that seemed to have emerged between us all as we kept our distance from each other.”
Margie says working with shells has taught her a lot, and has given her a chance at a new adventure in the second half of her life. She doesn’t know how long she’ll do it, but right now it brings her much joy.
Find Margie at art markets around London and Greenwich (where I first met her) or on Instagram @quirky_pixie_decor.
This article appeared in Beachcombing Volume 40 January/February 2024.
