Born and raised in Brighton Beach Brooklyn, I’ve always had a love and connection to the sand and surf.
My affinity to the beaches continued as my wife Tina and I raised a family in Port Washington and Hampton Bays.
As a child of a holocaust survivor, I developed a strong and pragmatic work ethic from a young age. I worked after school and weekends in my parents’ mom and pop houseware store on Brighton Beach Avenue. My creative side emerged in writing during high school and at the University of Buffalo. That creative side however gave way to the practical, safer path, and when I came to a fork in the road I started an interim job with a technology company. This turned into a 40-year career.
Twelve years ago, I started incorporating a beach run into my weekly exercise routine. To my surprise I started seeing and picking up sea glass along the LI Bays. I was taken by the beauty of their colors, smoothed shapes, infinite variety, and mysterious origin. I was hooked and started running with a fanny pack and coming home with a bounty of nature’s jewels.
There were several women in town who were also collecting sea glass. They were creating jewelry from their finds. As my own treasure chest accumulated, I thought why not figure out how to create art with my ever-increasing mountain of glass?
As my new artistic endeavor started to crawl out of its infancy, I lost my 20-year-old daughter to suicide. Hayley Rose was a talented, award-winning artist in her own right. My occasional dabbling into this relatively new hobby now became my daily lifeline. Hand over hand, I slowly journeyed out of what was then an endless tunnel. Hayley was with me, her passion and creativity omnipresent along the passage of time and healing. The broken sea glass creations you see on this website truly are symbols of hope, rejuvenation, and resilience.