Lewes Historical Society’s Mid-Atlantic Sea Glass & Coastal Arts Festival Scheduled for June 25 & 26

Lewes, Delaware- June 8, 2016- The Lewes Historical Society announces the 2016 Mid-Atlantic Sea Glass & Coastal Arts Festival Saturday, June 25 and Sunday, June 26 at the Cape May-Lewes Ferry Terminal, 43 Cape Henlopen Drive in Lewes, Delaware. Hours are 9:00am to 4:00pm on Saturday and 9:00am to 3:00pm on Sunday. Admission to the festival is $5 per person each day; children under 12 free.

Last year, the Mid-Atlantic Sea Glass & Coastal Arts Festival, attracted over 4,000 visitors. 2016 is the seventh year for this event, and it’s expected to be better than ever!  It will feature nearly seventy sea glass artists, joined by other coastal artists- including decoy carvers and waterfowl artists.  Vendors come from up and down the East Coast, and as far away as the Virgin Islands.

Enjoy delicious food and cool treats all weekend. Fun for all, a children’s educational area will be inside at the Ferry Terminal upstairs gallery. The pirate crew will once again join the festivities this year, to provide fun activities, story time, and photos.  Jimmy G will be playing Steel Drums on Saturday from 10:00am-2:00pm.  Bring your glass shards and bottles, as specialists Richard LaMotte and Keith Fleming will be available to identify your treasurers on-site.  Learn the history of sea glass and how it gets its’ unique texture, view glow in the dark sea glass, and be dazzled by a dress made entirely out of sea glass by Stu Jacobs.

Like collecting shells, fossils, or stones, combing shorelines for sea glass is a hobby many beachcombers enjoy. Sea Glass hobbyists often fill decorative jars with their collections and take great pleasure in sourcing out a shard’s origin. Artisans craft beautiful pieces of jewelry, stained glass and other decorative treasurers from sea glass.

Sea glass can be found all over the world, but the beaches of the northeast United States, California, northwest England, Mexico, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Nova Scotia, Italy and southern Spain are famous for their bounty of sea glass, bottles, bottle lips and stoppers, art glass, marbles, and pottery shards. The best times to look are during spring tides and during the first low tide after a storm.

Shards may also evidence a frosted side and a shiny side, most likely because they are pieces broken off from larger glass objects still embedded in mud, silt or clay, which are only slowly being exposed by wave action and erosion.

With greater environmental awareness, there has been a decline in naturally occurring sea glass, creating a great market for expensive and rare pieces.

The Lewes Historical Society invites the public to celebrate sea glass and coastal art on Saturday, June 25 and Sunday, June 26. For more details about the Mid-Atlantic Sea Glass & Coastal Arts Festival or for more information on The Lewes Historical Society, contact 302-645-7670.

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“Come to the Mid-Atlantic Sea Glass & Coastal Arts Festival on Saturday and Sunday, June 25 and 26, at Cape May-Lewes Ferry Terminal, 43 Cape Henlopen Drive in Lewes. Hours are 9:00am to 4:00pm on Saturday and 9:00am to 3:00pm on Sunday. Photo by Michele Buckler.”