WILMINGTON, N.C. — It’s Oyster Week and seafood lovers up and down the coast are getting their fix of that salty, buttery treat.
Many restaurants will have an influx of shells they’ll have to discard, and since oyster shells are banned from disposal in landfills in North Carolina, people like Ana Brown are getting creative.
Brown knows how to make one man’s trash another man’s treasure. She used to be a painter, but now, she uses oyster shells to make one-of-a-kind pieces of art.
It’s something she started doing after her sister, Jules, died of colon cancer.
“Painting did become quiet, I lost my sister and it just became a little difficult for me to paint in a place that, for me, just felt too quiet,” Brown said, “So I was on the beach one day and I was just kind of drawn to start picking up these oyster shells, and I didn’t know why at the time, but I felt it very strongly, so I did, so I went and picked up buckets and buckets of oyster shells.”
Now, she arranges those shells like pieces of a puzzle. She creates crosses, anchors, mermaids and all sorts of sea life — making something beautiful and meaningful out of something others might not look twice at.
“The lovely part of this kind of art is that it’s so much fun just to go collect these beautiful oyster shells on the beach, knowing that they don’t only have to be perfect ones because sometimes the broken ones are what make it perfect,” Brown said, “So it’s nice to use broken shells as well, so it’s not just those perfect ones that I use, but I love ones that have holes in them, that have a little bit of texture or character.”
Brown not only uses shells she finds at the beach, but discarded ones from restaurants too. Now, she’s got thousands of shells on hand for plenty of projects, and with Oyster Week offering many seafood lovers discounted oyster specials, she knows she’ll have plenty more shells to work with and new projects to take on.
“As friends during Oyster Week are enjoying those amazing oysters, then they can keep those shells,” Brown said. “They can do this themselves or even just taking one shell and painting something on it, it is a small remembrance of your time at the beach.”
Brown believes that preserving those special memories is so important. That’s why she commemorates her sister, and their time at the beach, with each piece.
“We grew up on the beach and played there the whole time we were growing up, and I think that she would love that I didn’t stop creating,” Brown said. “I think she would love that I’m doing something to make something beautiful out of something that most people just discard and don’t think that it's special, so I think she’d really appreciate that because she did that with people, and that was pretty amazing.”
You can find Brown’s work for SeaJules and Two Oysters for sale at Blue Moon Gift Shops in Wilmington.
You can also contact Brown about creating a special art piece made out of oyster shells collected during special memories made on the beach by visiting SeaJules or Two Oysters.
Brown has been selected as the artist for the 2023 Azalea Festival and will have her work unveiled Wednesday.
Brown also founded the Blue Ribbon Run in honor of her sister in an effort to raise awareness and to push for a cure.
You can learn more about the run here.
