At The Rust Belt Market: TwoTrack Mind Beachglass

The offers a unique experience for patrons as well as vendors. The new art market is host to more than 60 artists every weekend. Each week, Ferndale Patch will feature one artist and get a closer view of what the heck they do.

Ferndale Patch: Who are you and what do you do?

Robin Serrano: I am Robin Serrano and I do Lake Michigan treasures, beach glass and stones. I take these things and make jewelry, key chains, sun catchers and zipper pulls. I am always coming up with new ways to incorporate my beach treasures in to beautiful pieces.

Ferndale Patch: How did you get your start?

Serrano: Actually, it was just something to do with all of the glass that I was finding. I have a cottage up in Manistee and I’ll spend hours and hours walking the beach and I was accumulating all of this beach glass. So my girlfriend said to me one day – why don’t you do something with all of it? And that was it. I started making these things last summer.

I see the beauty in each piece. I’ll look at it and all the sudden -- I’ll see what to do with it. Or I’ll have a piece in my mind, so I sort through my glass collection to find the glass that matches that idea. I know that this might be an acquired taste for some people. They may think of it as trash, but I don’t. I just think this glass is absolutely beautiful.

Ferndale Patch: What inspires you?

Serrano: I am inspired by each and every piece. Everything that I find inspires me and what I make it in to. It’s really hard not to keep a lot of it. On the flip side, how many pieces can I wear? I rather other people wear it and enjoy it.

Ferndale Patch: What is it about the Rust Belt that attracted you to it?

Serrano: I work in Ferndale and my best friend lives here. I kind of have ties here. I live the feel as soon as I walked in here. I haven’t done any shows yet. I’ve sold pieces strictly word of mouth and online. I just don’t see myself doing the show circuit, because I’m a freshly single mom, concerned about weekends. I work two weekends a month and this just seems to be really perfect that you can choose your weekends. It felt really comfortable that it’s in Ferndale and it’s stationary.

For some reason, my stuff doesn’t really sell well on etsy and artfire. In person, when people see it – they always buy stuff. I don’t what it is – maybe it’s the touchy, feely thing. But I’m having a harder time online. People can come here and see my pieces and appreciate them more.

Ferndale Patch: Tell us one thing about your work that would surprise us.

Serrano: The most surprising thing would probably be the ungodly amount of hours that I spend the beach in search of these pieces. It’s like an obsession, really. I can’t just go down there and hunt for an hour or so. I’ll do 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. every day, if I have my way. The most time I’ve ever spent looking is over eight hours in one day. I lose track of time. It’s just walking and it’s beautiful.

TwoTrack Mind Beachglass will be at Rust Belt this weekend, as well as Thanksgiving weekend and Dec. 10 and 11. You can also purchase items from artfire at: http://www.artfire.com/ext/shop/studio/twotrackmind. TwoTrack Mind Beachglass takes custom orders through her Facebook Page. TwoTrack Mind is also on esty.