Wildabout Wampum Artisan
Marcia Poirier
Marcia Poirier is a Yankee-born descendant of the Acadians, the French settlers who in the late 1600s came to inhabit the Atlantic shores of what is now known as Canada.
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Creative since her youth, Marcia began her Quahog shell jewelry by chance. While spending a day in her favorite activity of beach combing, she spotted the shape of a heart in the coloring of a shell she plucked from a beach in New Brunswick, Canada. With only the crude tools at hand, she carved it out and wore it as a pendant. Requests from others for pieces of their own led to a four-year search for better processes and better tools to sculpt the rock-hard shell.
Only later did Marcia learn that she was making “Wampum”, and that it was an all-but-lost art dating back hundreds of years. Today, Marcia shares her love of shells with others through sales of her Wampum jewelry, while continuously designing new and ever-more-stunning pieces. |
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Customers who drop by Wildabout Wampum's studio and workshop in Cocagne may also have the chance to meet apprentice Kim Reeder. Kim is in the process of learning the processes which Marcia has developed for cutting and sculpting Quahog shells into Wampum jewelry. To fit it in with other responsibilities elsewhere, Kim usually stops by the studios a couple of days each week. Having begun with the most basic procedures for shaving the outside layers off the shells, Kim has progressed through rough cutting.
These days, she has moved well past the basic skills and is now involved in sculpting some of the intermediate carvings for both pendants and earrings produced for public sale. We invite everyone to stop by this spring and summer and say hello to Kim. |
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Our Staff
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