Searching for Seashells

Jessie King Regunberg is a beachcomber and artist from Washington, DC. Since she was a little girl, walking the shore in search for treasures has been Jessie’s activity of choice at the sea. She and her brother used to snorkel in the shallowest part of the ocean to find seashells. “I don’t remember a time at the beach when I didn’t beachcomb.”

Jessie mostly searches for seashells, but says she is always excited to find a beautiful piece of sea glass or any rare trinket that washes ashore.

One of Jessie’s favorite spots is Amagansett, where her family vacations. She says she’s enjoyed getting to know the seashells of the rocky shore in Olympia, Washington, where her husband’s family lives. “But one can’t beat the beauty and color of the seashells of the Caribbean.”

Jessie says she’s found several large moon snail shells while in Washington, but she really wants to find a huge, colorful shell—big enough to hear the ocean in.

Now a mother, Jessie usually beachcombs with her children. Though Jessie’s mother is not a beach person, she loves treasure hunting and thus beachcombing is an activity they can share. During the time Jessie had her first and second child, she was working toward a PhD in early American history, but early into her dissertation, she was no longer passionate about the extremely specialized topic. After some internal struggle, she decided to instead pursue writing and art. “It was a very difficult decision, but I am so happy with the path I followed.”

Now a talented artist, Jessie creates her works in a home studio (transformed from her kids’ basement playroom). “We put in flooring that can take my kids’ crafting and the mess of my mosaic-making. It’s my favorite room in the house.” Jessie’s favorite paints are gouache paints. Like watercolors but more pigmented, she says she can layer and control thickness more easily.

Jessie has no regrets about switching her career path and says her past studies have informed the art and writing present in her book Searching for Seashells. In the book, readers won’t just get a straightforward account of various seashells, but a dive into history, art history, religion, architecture, and much more. “I used lots of bright colors and attempted to approach the subject with a sense of humor. I hope that it can serve as a little book that’s easy to curl up with and read from cover-to-cover, but that lends itself equally to perusing one spread at a time.”

Since she’s a mom of three energetic kids, when she’s not making art, she’s taking them all around town to their activities and sports, along with volunteering at their school.

Jessie says her grandma, who passed away three years ago, was a huge inspiration for her art. “We were very close. She was a woman who valued art and beauty, and brought her artist’s eye to everything. I hope to bring a bit more beauty to the world as my grandmother did.”

Read on for an excerpt from Searching for Seashells.

Excerpted from Searching for Seashells: An Artist’s Guide to Treasures on the Beach by Jessie King Regunberg (Workman Publishing). Copyright © 2024.

Excerpted from Searching for Seashells: An Artist’s Guide to Treasures on the Beach by Jessie King Regunberg (Workman Publishing). Copyright © 2024.

All photos courtesy of Jessie Regunberg.

Learn more about seashells

Learn more about identifying shells, the history of seashell collecting, great shelling beaches, and the lives of the animals who make the shells we find on the beach. Articles ›

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