Lundberg Sea Glass – Gems of the Davenport Coastline
Another “first” for Bruce and Gail! This past November Bruce and I packed our bags and headed to the Pacific Coast to attend the annual Santa Cruz Sea Glass Festival. We had met the festival organizer and fellow sea glass jeweler, Krista Hammond, at other sea glass festivals, and decided to travel to California for the festival. After admiring Krista’s sea glass collection, we were determined to make time for some sea glassing while visiting California.
Krista is the owner of Santa Cruz Sea Glass and is the author of the book Santa Cruz Sea Glass, The Story Behind the Treasure, which explores the history of each piece of sea glass and how it was found. Krista’s amazing collection of sea glass is enough to take your breath away, and her book is a must read for sea glass enthusiast. While doing research for her book, Krista worked closely with Rebecca Lundberg, the wife of the late James Lundberg, founder of the Lundberg Studios.
The Lundberg Studios is located in the quaint coastal town of Davenport, California. The glass- making factory was founded in the early 1970s and creates world renowned fine art glass. There unique method of creating glass products produces some of the most beautiful vases, paperweights and other glass objects in the world. Lundberg glass can be found in the White House, The Smithsonian, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Art Institute of Chicago.
As the story goes, a heavy rainstorm in the 1970a caused the San Vicente Creek to overflow. The subsequent flooding swept containers of Lundberg Studio’s discarded blown-glass trimmings from where they were stored behind the shop and into the ocean. After the incident, Lundberg Studios adopted a policy of recycling all their glass trimmings. The San Vicente Creek is now a protected stream for the habitat of native steelhead and salmon. This act of nature along with 40 years of polishing by the sea makes sea glass found at Davenport some of the most prized in the world.
As Bruce and I soon discovered, finding Lundberg sea glass was not an easy task and not for the faint of heart. The waves here are known to be fierce and the glass does not wash up on shore often. I was told that the difficulty and infrequent opportunities to find this glass adds to its mystique. After scouring as many beaches as possible in our short visit, Bruce and I came up empty handed. However, I was determined not to go home without some Lundberg glass, so we did the next best thing. We paid a visit to the Lundberg studios, after which I delightedly came home with my prized piece of Lundberg glass.
