OXNARD

Shells: Oxnard displays nature's architectural wonder

Alicia Doyle
Special to The Star

When Catherine Wiggins picked up her first seashell at the age of 5, it was the beginning of a lifelong hobby.

Catherine Wiggins points out a shell from a giant tube worm, part of the Designs from the Deep: The Architecture of the Shell exhibit at the Channel Islands Maritime Museum in Oxnard. The exhibit consists of shells from Wiggins' collection.

Today, the Oxnard woman has a collection of shells from all over the world that she's sharing for the first time with the public. “Designs from the Deep: The Architecture of the Shell” is on display at the Channel Islands Maritime Museum through Jan. 1, and Wiggins will discuss her collection during an opening reception on Thursday.

“I started collecting when I was really young — we lived right across the street from a beach,” said Wiggins, who grew up in Redondo Beach and is a certified scuba diver. “If you’ve ever picked up a shell, it’s pretty addicting. It’s pretty amazing and I just really got hooked, so I’ve been picking them up ever since.”

The exhibit showcases approximately 1,000 shells from Wiggins’ collection. They're from Australia, Hawaii and Florida, and from the Pacific coast from Mexico to Seattle.

These Murex shells are part of the Designs from the Deep: The Architecture of the Shell exhibit at the Channel Islands Maritime Museum in Oxnard. The exhibit consists of shells from Catherine Wiggins' collection.

“I have a few from Asia, so there’s pretty much a global view of shells around the world,” she said.

About a third of those on display were acquired in the late 1970s when she was shipwrecked southwest of the Hawaiian Islands at 17 years old.

“My goal was to circumnavigate the globe, so you’d crew on a boat,” Wiggins said. “It was a 36-foot sailing ship. We came into some really heavy seas and ended up shipwrecked on Palmyra, a small atoll in the middle of the South Pacific, about 1,200 miles southwest of the Hawaiian Islands.”

During low tide, the area was filled with shells, including intricately colored triton tiger shells and murex shells.

Catherine Wiggins holds a carrier shell, part of the Designs from the Deep: The Architecture of the Shell exhibit at the Channel Islands Maritime Museum in Oxnard. The exhibit consists of shells from Wiggins' collection.

“There were so many when there was low tide — like the tiger cowries," Wiggins said. "There were just thousands and thousands of them, and when it was low tide they’d all be underneath the coral outcroppings. I was collecting everything … there were so many amazing things on that island. It’s now a national wildlife refuge because there are many things that live there that don’t live anywhere else in the world.”

She also has quite a few shells from the Pacific Northwest.

“That ties into our maritime museum,” said Wiggins, who has been a docent at the Channel Islands Maritime Museum for five years.

“We represent the age of sail, and in the age of sail, shells and shellfish really helped sailors stay alive,” Wiggins said. “When they’d go ashore somewhere they would gather and collect cockles, clams and oysters. They would live on those and make art with those while at sea — like valentines with hundreds of shells — and give them to their loved ones. That’s a neat tie-in with the maritime aspect.”

Her collection includes a rare white abalone, clams and nitrites that look like zebras. They vary in size, from tiny shells that can be viewed with a magnifying glass, to shells bigger than a bowling ball.

Catherine Wiggins holds a black abalone shell, which she found in 1967 and is one of her favorites and is part of the Designs from the Deep: The Architecture of the Shell exhibit at the Channel Islands Maritime Museum in Oxnard. The exhibit consists of shells from Wiggins' collection.

Wiggins is particularly passionate about the architecture that each mollusk creates.

“They’re all big slugs and there are different species,” she said. “They are the masters of natural architecture — these shells are created by these little slugs. They create all of this — the colors, the patterns. Some are the same species, but because they’re from a different area they will look different.”

She compared the creation process to the flamingo.

“When a flamingo eats a brine shrimp he turns pink. When the abalone eats algae, depending on the algae it’s eating, it gives them colors. A slimy little slug makes this beautiful art and to me, that’s one of the most exciting things. How do they know that this is exactly the architecture they’re going to build? This has always been one of my questions — it’s mind-boggling.”

Museum Curator Kate Crouse said she didn’t know much about seashells until she started working with Wiggins on her exhibit.

“After working so closely with her and the shells and seeing how intricate and exquisite the details are — and the science behind it of how these creatures create these little tiny homes to live in — it’s a very amazing exhibit to work on,” Crouse said. “They’re beautiful.”

Catherine Wiggins points to a very large horse conch shell, with three tiny versions of the same type of shell, part of the Designs from the Deep: The Architecture of the Shell exhibit at the Channel Islands Maritime Museum in Oxnard. The exhibit consists of shells from Wiggins' collection.

Crouse hopes the exhibit will raise more awareness of the Channel Islands Maritime Museum, which moved four years ago to its current location on Bluefin Circle in Oxnard’s Channel Islands Harbor.

“We used to be across the harbor and we would get a lot of foot traffic on the corner,” Crouse said. “Now we’re at a much bigger, much more spectacular location, but we’re on a dead end street, so we have to get people to realize that we’re here.”

If you go

What: Designs from the Deep: The Architecture of the Shell

When: Opening reception is 5 to 7 p.m. Thursday; exhibit runs through Jan. 1, with hours of 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily.

Where: Channel Islands Maritime Museum, 3900 Bluefin Circle, Oxnard.

Cost: $7 adults; $5 seniors, students, active military;$3 children 6-17; free for members and children younger than 6.

Information: 984-6260, cimmvc.org.