Living on salt water as we do, barnacles are a fact of life, but we don’t generally get too excited about them. I’ve certainly never considered them to be beautiful before. But this artist has me looking at them a different way.

Something Like This Design (A.K.A. Trygve Faste and Jessica Swanson) have created a series of barnacle-clad intertidal objects which are changing how I feel about the aquatic pain in the butt. In spite of myself, I’m finding these objects really appealing. They incorporate soft, sunset-and-sea colors, graceful ceramic and rope shapes, and textures that make me want to touch them. And then there are the strategically-grown barnacles, which add another dimension and texture to the already interesting objects. I’m really surprised by how much I like them.

These are the second series of intertidal objects they’ve worked with. I went looking for their first series, and it’s essentially the same types of objects with similar colors and shapes and textures, but minus the barnacles. Bizarrely, after seeing series 2 first, series 1 felt a little like a let-down. I missed the stupid barnacles. These people are onto something!