Shell artist Mel Campion's house on the west coast of Anglesey is a constant source of Inspiration

It seems fitting then that Mel’s home and studio are situated by the sea. The Art Deco house she shares with her husband Will and her four children sits on top of a hill ‘like a white sugar cube’, says Mel, overlooking a wide bay. On a clear day, you can see Ireland’s Wicklow Hills. Once a hotel, the property had been empty for several years when they first saw it. Mel is from South Wales and Will spent childhood summers in the area. Both were drawn to the craggy coastline and secret coves of this Cornwall of the North. ‘We sent the owner endless letters asking if we could buy it,’ recalls Mel. And when the property eventually came up for sale in 2014, they pounced.

It was restored with a light touch because, as Mel says, it is the views that matter here. Her sister, artist and interior designer Rachel Hamel Cooke helped with the decoration. They kept the original mahogany floors and window frames but used a rough plasterwork in shades of cream and lilac for the walls to create an inside-outside effect. Cas Pollen, an artist who specialises in verre églomisé, made a glass splashback for the kitchen that reflects views of the sea. The studio opposite, where the light pours in through the french windows, is a more recent addition.

Mel poses on Porth Diana beach at Trearddur Bay surrounded by large abalone shells.

Mark Anthony Fox

Salvage is another distinctive feature of the interiors and includes old sinks in various sizes and materials. The copper one in the flower room nods to local history and the late 18th century, when copper mining was a thriving industry here. Many of the antiques came from her mother, Jane Davies, who had a successful career as an interior designer. And there are experiments using shells on a fireplace, in the downstairs loo and in the new sauna – surely a first for shellwork.

Mel’s father, Paul Davies, was an engineer and skilled sailor who took part in the 1972 Olympics. He was also a co-designer of the innovative Laser racing sailboat in 1969, designed to be slim enough to sit on top of a car. Tragically, he was killed at 38 in a car crash. Mel was, regrettably, too young then for sailing lessons. ‘I’ve spent the rest of my life trying to make up for it,’ she says. Along with her four children, she has learned to sail in North Wales. Later in the afternoon, they hitch their elegant wooden myth sailboat – a local design – onto their Land Rover and drive to the beach. I watch them tacking across the bay, the red sail fluttering as if in a scene from Arthur Ransome’s book Swallows and Amazons. ‘This is heaven,’ shouts Mel across millpond-smooth water. I believe her.

French wooden oyster buckets hold different kinds of shells being used for the mirror-frame commission Mel and Ella are working on, sourced by. them from local beaches and supplemented by restaurant discards.

Mark Anthony Fox

The next day, we head to one of the island’s oldest sites. The three-metre-high Penrhos Feilw standing stones, framed by the brooding low hulk of Holyhead Mountain Mynydd Twr, probably date back to the Bronze Age. Their ancient, mystical appeal has a parallel with her own work, says Mel, since, in pagan times, sites of worship were often decorated using shells.

There is also a long tradition of using exotic shells as signifiers of wealth and taste. In the 18th century, the scions of stately homes used rare, imported specimens to line the walls of their grottoes, follies or hermitages. Nowadays, in more ecological times, makers like Mel source their shells closer to home. Venus clams, whelks, cockles, or local Menai mussels – byproducts of the food industry – lend themselves to creative use.

We pay a visit to Chris Neill, who has been farming oysters on the island since the 1970s (at the peak of the business he was supplying around 10,000 oysters a week, mainly to bars in Blackpool). We meet him on a jetty overlooking a peaceful stretch of inland sea, where he is sifting through piles of crustaceans. Any rejects are given to Mel. ‘Look at what nature made,’ she says, seizing a gnarled, knobbly example.

Mark Anthony Fox

Ella is a friend of Chris’s three sons, who have all inherited their father’s entrepreneurial streak. Digby, who runs music events such as Gottwood Festival on Anglesey, Toby, the restaurateur behind Michelin-starred St Barts, EC1, and their brother Hamish have also joined forces to open The Stores in Trearddur Bay. The colourful Italian-inspired deli and restaurant is a popular meeting place. We stop to pick up lunch, while Mel and Ella trade island gossip with friends.

Back in the studio, they don their boiler suits and get back to work. Their latest commission, from designer Ken Fulk, is for a shell-encrusted cabana in a Barcelona hotel. The loose brief here was ‘bold and big’. ‘The possibilities are infinite,’ says Mel. ‘Like nature.’

Campion & Daughters: campionanddaughters.com