Josephine the Baby Sea Turtle Necklace

She emerged from her nest in the dark, as they always do, following the light toward the water with the urgency of something that has always known exactly where it needs to be. The waves were enormous. She fought them anyway. She has been fighting them for a very long time, resting when she can, holding on, looking out toward the open ocean that her whole body already knows is home. She has never been there before. She already knows the way.

The Sea Turtle

Baby sea turtles hatch alone, with no adults to guide them, and immediately begin one of the most extraordinary navigational journeys in the animal kingdom. They crawl from their sandy nests to the water's edge, enter the surf, and begin swimming thousands of miles across open ocean using a navigation system that researchers are still working to fully understand.

What they have discovered is this. Sea turtle hatchlings carry tiny crystals of magnetite in their bodies, and these crystals allow them to physically feel the Earth's magnetic field the way you might feel the pull of something with your hands. Every location on Earth has its own unique magnetic signature, its own magnetic address, and baby sea turtles are born already knowing how to read that address and swim toward the one that is right. They emerge from the nest with both a magnetic map and a magnetic compass, one telling them where they are, one telling them which direction to swim, and together these two systems allow a creature the size of your palm to navigate an ocean it has never seen.

And then, decades later, after a life spent crossing and recrossing those thousands of miles of open water, the female sea turtle returns to lay her own eggs. Not just to any beach. To the specific beach where she was born, identified by its exact magnetic signature, memorized on her first night in the world. She has been carrying that address inside her the whole time, waiting to come home.

The Piece

Her name is Josephine, and she was made by hand from borosilicate glass by Abigail Castagnaro, my daughter and an extraordinarily talented miniature glass artist who melts animals into being with a skill and care that leaves me genuinely in awe. Josephine is set inside an epoxy resin cabochon that holds an entire world around her, real treasures gathered from the beaches of Cape Cod, sand that fades from beach to ocean water, fragments of sea glass, seashells, seaweed, and real flakes of sterling silver that catch the light the way the surface of the ocean catches sunlight when the angle is exactly right.

The resin cabochon is prong set at the center of a sterling silver ocean scene built entirely by hand, every element shaped from molten silver and carved to its final form. Waves curl around the cab on either side, each one built up with hand placed bubbles that give them the oxygenated life of real surf. Within those waves and surrounding the stone are hidden treasures that reveal themselves the longer you look, different types of sea grasses, seaweed, starfish, seashells, rocks, and the tiniest hand formed hermit crab with teensy claws doing exactly what hermit crabs do, going about their business completely unbothered by everything else happening around them.

At the top of the pendant a branching piece of sea coral holds the whole composition onto its 18 inch sterling silver chain. The pendant measures just over 3 inches tall and 1.5 inches wide.

The Craftsmanship

• Pendant: just over 3 inches tall by 1.5 inches wide
• Josephine: borosilicate glass baby sea turtle, handmade by Abigail Castagnaro
• Cabochon: epoxy resin with real Cape Cod beach sand, sea glass, seashells, seaweed, sterling silver flakes
• Frame: sterling silver throughout, oxidized, entirely hand formed
• Chain: 18 inch sterling silver chain
• Edition: one of a kind

One of a Kind

There is only one Josephine. This beach, these Cape Cod treasures, this particular hermit crab going about his particular business in these particular waves: they exist once. When this piece finds its person it will never be made again exactly like this.

A Note from Tamara

This piece is one of the most personal things I have ever made because Josephine herself was made by my daughter Abigail, whose hands and vision and skill I am endlessly proud of. I built the whole ocean world around her because a baby sea turtle deserves an ocean, and because the beaches of Cape Cod felt like exactly the right place for that ocean to come from. I hope whoever wears this thinks about what it means to be born already knowing where you are going, to carry your home address inside you from the very first moment, and to fight the waves anyway because your whole soul is pointing toward the open water. That is Josephine. That is every baby sea turtle that has ever made it to the sea.

Shipping

Your Josephine is finished, packaged safely, and will be on her way to you within 3 to 5 business days.