The Glass at the Tideline May Be Centuries Old, and Artists Are Paying Attention

Sea glass takes decades of surf and sand to make: bits of broken glass rolled and scoured until the sharp edges wear smooth and the surface turns frosted. Some of the pieces that turn up on beaches have been in the water for centuries, so one small fragment can link the time it was made to the moment someone picks it up. Artists around the world have used it as their material, treating what the ocean spent years finishing as something worth building on. For a collector walking the shore in the Hamptons or Naples, it is a reminder that the waves have been doing slow, careful work.

With reporting from The Collector.