‘Treasures of the unsalted sea’

When Teagan Walters is at a Port Washington beach, she isn’t tanning or swimming.

She’s working, often getting help from her family.

“If we’re at the beach, we’re combing the beach,” she said of the quest for beach glass. “Your head is down. You have a special eye for it.”

Walters has a collection of beach glass found by her family over 30 years.

“We haven’t thrown it away because they knew I would probably use it,” she said. “This is pounds and pounds of glass.”

The 24-year-old Port native put the beach glass to use this summer when she launched Shoreline Artistry to sell jewelry she makes of natural beach glass.

The beach glass that is the raw material for Waters’ jewelry has specific requirements. Most importantly, it must have been found on a Lake Michigan beach. It has to be “nature-created beach glass,” she said, that has not been treated in a tumbler machine to make it look like beach glass. 

Even with the real thing, she said, “sorting the glass takes a long time and not every piece of beach glass is jewelry worthy.” .

Most of the beach glass comes from bottles. The most common colors are white, green and brown, but Walters said everyone wants blue, which is a rare find. Even red beach glass, perhaps from boat lights, has been found.

Walters also works with pottery pieces found on the beach, even some that may have come from shipwrecks, she said.

The pieces of beach glass that make the cut for Walters’ jewelry are “nice and smooth,” she said, “tumbled by the sand and the rocks. We pick them up like little treasures of the unsalted sea.” 

Then comes the technical work. Walters slowly employs a diamond drill bit under a little water so the glass doesn’t heat up and crack – though she said it happens often – to be able to secure the glass in whatever piece she is creating.

Walters began to hone mechanical skills when she took technical education classes at Port High, which included welding in an advanced placement art class.

“I had been welding in my garage with my crocs with a short-sleeved T-shirt,” she said. “I wanted to learn how to do it properly.”

Those classes gave Walters a leg up in college, and after earning a bachelor’s degree in fine arts at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago she worked as a project coordinator for the Fine Art Studio of Rotblatt Amrany.

The small family owned studio creates the bronze statues of athletes that stand outside stadiums that thousands of visitors have their photos taken with, including statues of Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant and some at Lambeau Field. 

Walters had a role in creating the iconic bronze pieces. “I would sit at the printer and print every photo,” Walters said of thousands of images of the athletes.

Details included clothing and shoe measurements, tattoos and scars.

“If they wore tape on their finger, I would need to know that,” Walters said. “Lenny Wilkens wore a pendant his wife gave him.”

Walters attended the statues’ unveilings, where she got to meet some of the celebrities.

At one, “I was three feet away from Bill Murray,” she said. “I was like, oh my God. I was texting my dad the whole time.” 

After two years in the Windy City, it was time for Walters to come home. Her brother, co-owner of the Shipyard bar in Port, and his wife are about to have their first child, and the bar’s co-owner, Walters’ sister-in-law, is also due.

“I wanted to be around when the little ones are coming,” she said.

She worked in drywalling — “I’m a big advocate for the trades,” she said — and has bartended and cleaned the Shipyard, but now she is focusing on her art full time. Walters makes her jewelry pieces in a garage at the Shipyard.

“Hopefully, I’ll get my own studio one day. That’s the goal,” she said.

Her pieces are for sale at Newport Vintage and the Beach Tan in Port, and Walters sells her jewelry at area craft shows and farmers markets.

Walters wants to get into other art as well. Her senior thesis was mold making with plaster on the topic of the culture of northern Wisconsin and Michigan.

She also has been making shadow boxes with rocks, doing design and pattern work, and she wants to get back into welding. “That was so much of my life,” she said.

When Walters is neck deep in her art, she finds a place for contemplation.

“I think it’s a lot of meditation, time to think,” she said. “The world can get so intense. When I’m sorting glass or doing this, I’m in a very meditative state.”

Art, she has found, is a way to communicate.

“Some people think it’s an escape, but this is truly what we want to say, and sometimes it can be easier saying it through art,” she said.

Walters knows there’s value in her profession, despite the occasional contrary perception.

“Sometimes when people think of artists, they think their work is useless and they’re not contributing to the community,” she said. “That’s not true. I’m learning so many intricate things to show up for my community and do things people can’t.”

Walters said she is grateful to run her business in an area that appreciates art.

“People really love it. I’ve made so many connections. Networking is great in a community that supports its own people,” she said.

For more information, visit www.teaganwalters.com or on Instagram @shorelineartistry.