Hearts of Shells


In the nineteenth century, sailors returning from the Caribbean often brought their wives or sweethearts an octal box made of Spanish cedar present It had two compartts hinged together much like a et From the outside the box Tabled an old whaler's coms case, but when it was et1, it revealed an elaborate aic of colorful tropical shells in eful geometric designs set into compartment Ships, hearts,
loss, and flowers were fre-
ntly worked into the pattern,
were various romantic or senti-
ltal inscriptions.
less love tokens from the sea
e quickly dubbed sailors' val-
nes, and today they are inspir-
a new generation of valentine
er to rediscover the nine-
th-celltur! craft One of them
art porrreca, a lifelong shell col-
r Porreca is a familiar figure
Sanibel Island, off Florida's
Coast, where he lives during
winter. Dresseed in loose-fitting
d work clothes and a pair of
kern, Porreca spends part of
day meticulously combing
beach on his hands knees
he rare shells that wash up
rreca discovered sailors' val-
les at a meeting of the' Roches-
New York) Shell anal Sllore
u held at the mansion of the'
late Margaret Woodbury Strong in
965 Mrs. Strong's collection of
sixty-two sailors' valentines is the
world's largest and is housed--
along with more than two hun-
dred thousand other items she
amassed--at the Margaret Wood-
bury Strong Museum, scheduled
to open in October, 1982 Most of
those valentines are enclosed in
cases ten to twelve inches wide,
although one case is thirty inches
across At the meeting, Porreca
asked Mrs. Strong if he could
Photograph a valentine to study,
and she jokingly suggested he try
making one of his own. He ac-
cepted the challenge, and to spur
him along, another member fash-
ioned an octagonal case twelve in-
ches across for the valentine.
It took Porreca three years of
winter vacations to gather the
shells for his first valentine, an in-
tricate eight-pointed star. One half
of the valentine has at its center a
lovely pink heart made of rose-
petal tellins, the shell of a small
clam; the other half, a delicate
flower with petals of orange jingle
shells. (Jingle shells were often
strung together and placed over
doorways; their name comes from
the tinkling sound they made
when moved by a breeze or a per-
son passing through the door.)
The valentine contains more than
twenty varieties of shells, includ-
ing one thousand tiny green
jewels called emerald nerites.
"Those shells alone represent
three years of collecting," says the
eighty-three-year-old Porreca. The
rarest shells in the valentine are
the white ramshorns, which circle
the inside of the star. The
curlicue-shaped ramshorn is ac-
tually an air chamber from the in-
side of a squid. Finding shells such
as ramshorns depends on the
winds, tides, and life cycles of the
animals that inhabit them, as well
as an uncanny ability to be in the
right place at the right time.
Porreca is always out shelling after
a good storm. "That's what it takes
on Sanibel," he confides, "a good
northwest breeze."
At one time it was thought that
sailors made shellwork valentines
as a way of wiling away the hours
during long ocean voyages. The
Peter Foulger Museum in Nantuc-
ket has in its collection a sailors'
valentine made by Jared Tracy, a
famous Nantucket whaling cap-
tain. A majority of the craftspeople
who make sailors' valentines to-
day, however, believe that many
were fashioned by natives of Bar-
bados and sold to sailors. (Re-
search indicates that the valentines
may have originally been made in
England, France, and Belgium
in the late 1700's and early 1800's.)
Many of the shells used in the old
valentines are native to the waters
around the island, which was one
of the largest Caribbean ports in
the nineteenth century. In addi-
tion, many antique sailors' valen-
tines contain Barbados news-
paper backing and are inscribed
''A present from Barbados."
"I don't see how they could be
done on board ship," says Bernard
Woodman, who began making
sailors' valentines four years ago.
"I have trouble making them on a
level floor." Woodman has given
sailors' valentines a new twist by
incorporating into them small
whimsical nautical paintings by
marine artist Ralph Cahoon. One
of the paintings, for example,
shows a mermaid balancing on a
whale's belly, while another de-
picts a three-masted schooner
with a large white whale nearby.
Like many people who make
shellwork valentines, Woodman
buys his shells from dealers.
Woodman also fashions tra-
ditional sailors' valentines, often
incorporating floral motifs. His
handcrafted cases, which range
from six to twenty-four inches
across, are made of Russian ply-
wood, which is similar to bass-
wood. Disabled since the early
1970's, Woodman has spent count-
less hours poring over logs and
other books that might contain
references to shellwork; he has
also published a pamphlet on the
history of sailors' valentines.
Clarence Swift's valentines have
the bold simplicity that bespeaks
the eighty-two years he has spent
on Nantucket, mostly working as a
carpenter. Like Woodman, Swift
makes his own cases, but he con-
structs them of mahogany, not
plywood. Swift, who has made
almost two hundred valentines in
thirty years, says it takes him
exactly forty-five hours to com-
plete one. Charles Maguire first
2encountered sailors' valentilles at
n Indianapolis antiques show,
zven though he is an antiques
iealer on Nantucket. Along with
JUy Rossignol, a photographer,
e has begun producing a series of
alentines featuring such inscrip-
tions as "Forget me Not."
A considerable amount of nauti-
cal lore grew up around the old
sailors' valentines. A sailor who
came home with a shellwork val-
entine containing an anchor cen-
terpiece supposedly signified his
intention to give up seafaring.
And when an old salt wanted to
settle down, he let a shellwork
valentille p.lve the way for him:
According to legellt1, a sailor giv-
ing his sweetheart a valentine with
a rose-and-anchor centerpiece was
proposing marriage. Now that
shell collectors, antiques en-
thusiasts, and craftsmen are reviv-
ing this art form, the sailors' val-
entille may resume its role as a
love token from the sea