Back In The 1950s,

we had a family holiday,

on the Isle of Wight, I remember looking forward to it so much as on the mantle piece we had a glass light house filled with coloured sand from the Isle of Wight, I was a little disappointed when we arrived to find that there were not rainbow coloured cliffs of sand, at least not as bright and vibrant as the ones we had on our mantle piece, which brings me onto the art of bottled sand art, specifically those made by sand artist Andrew Clemens (1857-1894),

stricken with encephalitis (an inflammation of the brain) at age five, he was completely deaf and nearly mute, but, that didn’t stop him from starting to collect multi-coloured sands from the state’s Pictured Rocks region beginning from when he was a teenager,

 not only did he produce bottles with names,

but pictures as well, Clemens' images depict geometric shapes, historical figures, flowers, and nautical scenes, they are crystal clear and vibrantly coloured, and it’s almost hard to believe this was all done by hand, Clemens relied on the pressure of the tightly-packed grains to keep his handiwork intact and never used glue, it is estimated that the artist produced hundreds of bottles during his lifetime, but much less than that survived today, those that have survived are very collectible ranging from a few thousand to tens of thousands of dollars, but never mind the price they are just so nice to look at, and wonder, 'just how did he do it?.'