I had the opportunity to repair a shell grotto. The ceiling had collapsed in places due to a leaky roof so after the roof was repaired I got to work fixing new lath armatures for the missing stalactites.

All the shells were rescued from the fallen plaster and reused. The pattern of shell mosaic appeared to follow a regular style, with the different shells – cockles, mussels, whelks, periwinkles, oysters and limpets – all used in the same way throughout the existing undamaged ceiling, all I did was create my own interpretation following the existing pattern.