Pam Boynton, a Sanibel resident who specializes in creating Sailors’ Valentines first learned about them from an article in the New York Times about the opening of the Bailey-Matthews Shell Museum in the fall of 1995. She visited the museum the following spring and “found the Sailors’ Valentines mesmerizing,” she said. “When we left the museum, I told my husband, ‘I’m not sure if they’re tacky, or if they are stunningly beautiful.’ But I knew then that I would someday make my own Sailor’s Valentine.” The next year, Pam entered three of her works in the Sanibel Shell Fair, and won two awards. Since then, she has become a highly regarded creator of this unique art form, and her works are highly prized by collectors from many parts of the United States. Through Pam’s research she found that there are 35 species of shells used in Sailors’ Valentines and they are native to the West Indies and more specifically Barbados. Pam finds her shells mostly on Sanibel beaches or in shell shops.
In 2001, when her sister was ill she began her first Sailors’ Valentine mostly as therapy to help cope with her sister’s illness. Her first piece was entitled “Love is a Rose.”
Pam states that “there are thousands of shells she has used in her Valentine box and every one of them is completely natural in color and I am in awe of the variety of colors – a testament to the brilliance of nature. When Pam finishes her creations, she asks herself whether she has done the shells justice and her answer is: “ I feel like I have given a respectable new life to the many, many shells that were once home to living creatures.”