Crazy Kelp!

As promised!

When we had a short stay here at Turtle Rock RV on the Oregon coast last year, we were both really "taken" with the art work of the owner hanging on the all in the registration office. The pieces looked like maybe leather, maybe birch bark, maybe something else. Wrong! They were made from dried pieces of kelp. they were beautiful. They were unusual. They were captivating. And we vowed we would come back here- especially if she would agree to show us how they were done. No problem- the artist/owner of the campground offers a class in this craft to anyone who requests it for the more-than-reasonable fee of ten bucks a piece. So this year we took that class and really had a wonderful learning experience and, just maybe, a "project" or hobby for life.

Within a week of taking her class, we had amassed large quantities of kelp (some fresh and wet- some old and dried)and began to prepare them for the creations that these material could become. What fun! People wondered what in the harry we were doing with all those goodies laid out all over our campsite, we showed then what we had done, and with that there were more and more people gathering on their own. And taking the class. An unexpected bounty from the sea. Boundless bounty from a boundless sea!

In our very first class, we both produced something we felt very proud to have created. Here, then, is a look at the collecting, the processing, the class, the process, the results- all with cations (in the slide show)....