Ocean Jewel

So who could have guessed that Lynda Susan Hennigan's visit to a maritime museum in Provincetown, Mass., would result in a future career? Certainly not the shellwork artist. "I was just 7 years old," she recalls now, "but one look at the shells in old sailors' valentines, and I was hooked." While the term sailor's valentine is often applied to shell-encrusted frames and trinket coffers, or to nonoctagonal display boxes of partitioned shell groups (properly called sailors' souvenirs), the true 19th-century sailors' valentines were octagonal boxes filled with mosaics of shells.

Pictured: "After seeing an old tilt-top table in a Florida museum," says Lynda, "I had my furniture-maker friend Charlie build one like it for me." The result was this luminous tiger-maple piece, whose crowning glory is Lynda's shell-jeweled valentine showcasing twin paper nautiluses, S-shaped pairings of Spirula, and other oceanic treasures.




Broken Heart

And while Lynda enjoys creating all kinds of shellwork in her Connecticut studio, her heart belongs to the real McCoy, which makes up the bulk of her online business. She began the venture five years ago when the high cost of antique valentines induced her to create a work herself, and subsequent research on the subject led to even deeper commitment. As she explains, "I always try keeping to period by using most of the same materials and methods used in the 1800s." Beyond that, she adds, "the interpretations are my own."

Pictured: In the romance of sailors' valentines, broken hearts are easily mended - as shown by a freshly glued and rubber-banded heart cockle left to dry on a swathe of sea fan.



Elegant Shells

Capitalizing on the height of the whale-oil industry in the early 19th century, English brothers B.H. and George Belgrave opened a shop in Barbados, which was the whaler's last port of call. Decorative shellwork was at its height in the 1820s, and the Belgraves' shop was sought out for its locally crafted shell designs in eight-sided boxes, like those encasing a ship's compass. Snapped up by seamen for loved ones back home, these pieces were soon dubbed sailors' valentines.

Pictured: The acid-free paper backing of a work-in-progress echoes the gray-toned rice shells and money cowries (once used as currency) glued onto it.




Pink Creation

By the 1840s, whale oil that had once fueled oil lamps, streetlights, lighthouse beacons, and even the headlamps of locomotives was gradually being replaced by a succession of newer and cheaper substitutes, such as kerosene and acetylene. And as the whaling industry waned, so did the nautical art that it had helped to spawn. In 1880, when the Belgrave brothers' shop finally closed its doors, it was considered to be the primary source of the authentic sailor's valentine.

Pictured: On this finished work, a softly hued trio of scallop shells anchors a pink-themed design of sea urchins, oval sea biscuits, and curved tusk shells.




Scrimshaw

In the February 1961 issue of Antiques magazine, an article on the history of sailors' valentines written by Judith Coolidge Hughes sparked profound interest among dealers and collectors--as well as the artisans who began reviving this dormant art. Since then, auction prices for antique valentines have topped the $16,000 mark. And in 2003, a contemporary piece by Bernard A. Woodman sold for $21,850 at Eldred's Auction Gallery in East Dennis, Mass.

Pictured: Encircled by a double necklace of Umbonium shells, a contemporary New Bedford, Mass., "scrimshaw" captures the sail-swelled majesty of a 19th-century whaler.




Sand Dollars

While commercially bleached sand dollars are often the norm, Lynda's favorites are "grayed, yellowed, or mottled with age."



Sundial Shell

The base of this sundial shell is a piece of artwork in itself.



Stash of Shells

A project's most time-intensive step: finding 10, 20, or more shells of a single type whose size, shape, and color match. The "possibles" displayed are (clockwise from top left of photo) limpets, milk moons, and conelike augers.