Local Fine Art Weaves Coastal Elements Into Home Decor

Anyone spending time on or near Long Beach Island feels a strong connection to the natural grandeur of the shoreline. Since the beginning of time, the ocean has been a powerful symbol representing the cycles of life’s many patterns, moods and emotions.

As such, it’s not uncommon for seaside dwellers to weave coastal elements into their interior decor to bring some serenity into the home. However, it’s time to trade out some tired trends like sea foam wicker, palm trees, beach-themed word art and seashell potpourri for cleaner, more minimalist art that evokes true feeling.

(Artwork by Jillian Albright)

Jillian Elizabeth Albright brings elegant waterscapes to the table – literally. While she is also known for large-scale resin work, she specializes in functional art, and her bestsellers are her coastal cutting boards and drink coasters.

Utilizing the highest quality wood and food-grade materials, Albright invests her time, energy and money into crafting the finest functional art that elicits the serenity of a neutral tide rolling out to sea. The labor of love requires countless hours of effort while wearing protective equipment, but once the resin has cured, her creations are 100% food safe.

In addition to cutting boards, ring dishes, bracelet trays and wall art of various sizes, Albright’s latest creation has been wine and martini glasses that resemble the ocean floor. Much like her ring trays, which are essentially scallop shells with a layer of sand and a shell beneath a glaze of resin, the glasses highlight a little local garnish – just add liquid libations.

(Artwork by Jillian Albright)

Albright grew up just outside northeast Philly and summered in Surf City all her life. She took summer jobs and made all her friends on LBI, so she decided to move to Beach Haven West full time after graduating from college. She bartends at Buckalew’s and Station 117 and devotes the rest of her time to making art.

“What I really love about it here is that there’s such a tight-knit art community and everybody cares about each other.

“My mom always inspired creativity in us, so if we ever had a creative idea, she always supported them,” she said, explaining they always experimented with arts and crafts growing up.

She discovered resin before it became a popular medium, so there weren’t many tutorials or classes on the process. “It was a lot of trial and error with my mom,” she said. “And that’s what made it fun!”

With some encouragement from her parents, Albright decided back in 2020 to start an Instagram account and sign up for a few local art markets. She’d accumulated a plethora of pieces, but didn’t believe anyone would buy her work. Time and devotion proved her wrong.

“Resin is very fluid, and you can’t be a perfectionist with it because it’ll just do whatever it wants to do,” Albright said with a laugh. “It has taught me that the beauty is in the fact that you can’t control it.”

While experimenting with resin, Albright found the color white is heavier, which, with some finesse, creates the appearance of ocean suds. This piqued her muse, and she continued working in that vein until she developed a clean, cohesive, recognizable brand.

(Artwork by Jillian Albright)

“It took me years to mix together the perfect color,” said Albright, who wanted something natural and neutral so it would work in most homes. Now, people can buy various functional pieces from Albright and though the oceanic scenes may differ, the tones will always match.

Lately, Albright has been into larger scale, custom pieces, such as three-dimensional wall art, into which she sprinkles real sand and carves out beautiful little jetties, all by hand.

“You put more time into custom pieces. They’re more unique and more rewarding,” she said. “To be able to bring someone’s idea to life is really fun.”

The piece she’s proudest of, however, is a massive surfboard that she treated as a canvas for one of her frequent customers at Buckalew’s. It took her about six weeks to complete.

Albright’s work can be found at jillianelizabethart.com, or at @jillianelizabeth on Instagram. Her work will be available for purchase at the Beach Haven Art Walk and the Chowder Cook-Off. She invites Islanders to look for her at Beach Haven’s Artisan Markets and inside other local shops, such as Yaatree Bazaar.

(Artwork by E.Sabine)

Elizabeth Sabine’s large-scale paintings bring big, tidal moods to the walls of Harvey Cedars restaurant Black Eyed Susans. The Barnegat-based artist has lived in Ocean County all her life and has chosen to spend much of her time near the water.

“I’ve been an artist my whole life,” Sabine shared. “As young as I can remember, I was always that creative kid with my coloring book out, sketching.”

Her father worried that she’d be a starving artist, so when she decided to go to attend school, she studied business and interior design as a compromise to appease him.

Initially, she became a floral designer who dabbled in interior design projects, which, as an artist, she loved. However, “every week I was taken away from my family, and it wasn’t working for me as a mom.”

Sabine picked up painting to offset the stress of it all and accumulated a small body of work. While on LBI for Chowderfest, she walked into Artifacts and Company and asked the owner if she’d be interested in consigning a few of Sabine’s pieces. The first few pieces went immediately, “and that was my first motivator that I can do this,” Sabine recounted.

“Now I’m a full-time artist, so it’s come full circle,” she said, explaining that last year she celebrated 10 years as a professional artist. The work is not only a passion of hers, it has given her back time with her children.

Her style was much more raw and primitive when she first started painting, but with a uniqueness that patrons love.

“I have my first original seascape hanging as a reminder for me of where I’ve been and where I am now,” she said. “It motivates me to keep working toward being a better artist, and reminds me to have gratitude that good things are always happening.”

(Artwork by E.Sabine)

Over time, she’s mastered a refined style of dreamy landscapes and seascapes that still have a visceral quality that draws the viewer in.

“I believe art goes beyond the basic aesthetics of an image and is really rooted in the feelings artwork invokes and creates,” Sabine shared.

These days, she’s channeling big feelings into massive works (8 by 5 feet) that place the viewer directly into a sweeping vista that extends beyond physical context.

As an interior designer, Sabine offers free home trips for local commissions to take measurements and help design a proper color story for a client.

Last year, she traveled to Italy to complete a special landscape commission for a holiday gift, which has inspired her to make more landscapes. For example, this year, she’s hard at work on a mountainscape commission for Canada’s Banff National Park. However, being in the LBI area, she’ll never stray too far from the magnificent oceanic scenes that locals know and love.

To see what Sabine creates next, visit elizabethsabineart.com, or find her on Instagram at @elizabethsabineart. She’ll also be a part of the Beach Haven Art Walk on May 31 and the Harvey Cedars Art Festival on July 20, as well as a handful of Black Eyed Susans popups (dates to be determined).

(Photo by Ryan Morrill)

Ryan Morrill is an established photographer based out of Southern Ocean County who has taken award-winning shots of everything from wildlife, to sports, to the night sky over his 24-year-long career on staff at The SandPaper.

Of course, working for an LBI publication, Morrill has photographed every perspective of the ocean imaginable. Whether he’s on or off the clock, he’s developed an eye for capturing a story in one moment.

“I started out more as a photojournalist, chasing the story and getting the ‘scoop,’” he explained. However, through his work over the years, he’s witnessed himself evolve into more of an artist. While his work assignments often encourage him to get in on the action and tell a story, “I do like the calm and serenity of a nice landscape or seascape,” he shared.

“I got my first camera for my 10th birthday,” said Morrill, who would go on to take a few classes in high school. “This was, of course, way before digital photography.”

(Photo by Ryan Morrill)

As with the ocean’s fickle and fleeting tides, Morrill’s artistic work is a direct reflection of his mood. “Like anything in life, I go through phases,” he said, explaining he finds himself photographing whatever he comes across in the moment. Some days, it’s birds and other wildlife; on other days, it’s a tranquil nature scene. “I’ve always been fascinated with science and space, so I do have a fun time with astrophotography as well.”

(Photo by Ryan Morrill)

Although he’s shot mostly digital throughout his career at The SandPaper, he’s been making an intentional shift back into film photography as a fun pastime, “collecting and shooting some old, even antique, film cameras and experimenting with different film stocks.” Lately, he’s been working with an old Graflex Speed Graphic 4X5 camera, “like you see newspaper reporters use in old black and white movies,” with an instant film back, similar to Polaroid film.

Another tool that has changed his perspective in a massive way has been drone photography, which has given him a bird’s eye view of an altogether minimal yet dramatic tidal line as it sweeps across soft dunes, bringing a whole new meaning to “bigger picture.”

Among all the shots he’s taken, however, his favorite photographs are the ones of his family.

Find Morrill’s work every week in The SandPaper, at ryanmorillphotography.com, or on Instagram at @ryanmorrillphotography.