Last night I attended the Contemporaries Annual Oyster Roast and Keg party. It was a perfect spring day for an outdoor, after work get together, sunny and over 70 degrees.
I had a few of the oysters, thanks to my friends who brought the proper tools and that were willing to use them. If you know me very well you know I don’t usually eat at partiss and I never like to have dirty, stinky hands.
I started to think of all of the amazing things you could make out of all of those discarded shells. Sea life is beautiful both in the ocean and out. Shells are now used in so many ways in home decor and in diverse design styles. Here are a few favorites.
From Currey and Co. Dealers
Designers use shells in all types of decor. As seen in many magazines and the designs are not always coastal inspired.
Design of dining room by Charles Faudree.
There are also beautiful oyster shell tiles on the market like these made by Alibaba, Wouldn’t this color of tile look dramatic in a powder room?
In researching the history and origin of shell used in interior design I came across some out of those world photographs of custom designed interior art made from shells or “shell grottos”. These are beyond description!
Read the following excerpts from an article from all-about-seashells.com to learn more.
During the 17th Century seashell collecting and decorative shellwork were popular hobbies of the aristocracy. Artisans of the time incorporated Baroque grotto style shellwork into architectural embellishments. European nobility, inspired by places like the Medici’s Bobole Gardens in Florence and the Villa d’Este outside Rome commissioned artists to recreate similar marvels on their own estates. The seashell and other sea themes are the most prevalent motifs in French Rococo Style. The word Rococo itself is a combination of the words Barocco (grotto) and Rocaille (pebble) referring to small stones and shells used to decorate these grottos and gardens.
