About Maxwell
Maxwell Krims, founder of The Shell Gallery, is a psychotherapist, cultural anthropologist, ethnographer and author, and avid collector and researcher of marine mollusks. During his undergraduate career, Maxwell spent the majority of studies focusing on the ground-level disability justice research as well as on the intersection between human behavior and marine mollusks. All the while, Maxwell has engaged specifically in specimen collecting (otherwise known as rare shell collecting) for eighteen years. From a young age, marine mollusks fascinated Maxwell; likewise, he has had the privilege of being able to study the cultural implications of shell collecting from around the globe. Maxwell's passion for shell collecting persisted throughout his graduate Clinical Social Work education and into the present. Maxwell's collection boasts a multitude of the world's rarest and most desirable pieces known to the specimen collecting community.
About The Shell Gallery
Maxwell uses this webpage to both display components of his personal specimen collection, overview his knowledge of mollusks and human culture, and finally, promote himself as a speaker. Maxwell takes a special interest in storytelling, educating, and collaborative learning. If you or your organization find yourselves excited by these specimens and their stories, you and your constituents may find benefit in speaking to Maxwell directly. Whether this involves learning about shell identification and trading markets, the history of shell exchange, or the cultural implications of mollusks, the opportunities for discussion are endless.
Merging Calcium and Culture
Since the dawn of humankind, mollusks have scaffolded everything from our diets to our sprawling empires. They have held our hands as we determine and document policy, theology, and mathematics. And yes, they have fundamentally shaped global economies. I am utterly fascinated by this seemingly exaggerated proposition, yet I have found that many folks have a rather inconsequential attitude towards these pulsating lumps of slime. Of course, that is until they begin to grapple with the relationships between snails and civilization as we know it.
In all honesty, it confuses me that these creatures aren’t at the forefront of our conversations regarding culture, economics, architecture, and mythology. Even further, the lack of integration between mollusks and a discussion of the human condition itself is perplexing. For this reason, after nearly two decades of avid collecting and research, I have begun to ask my friends and family a very reductive question: “have you ever been excited by a snail?” When I ask this, my listeners often meet me with both resounding disinterest and a hefty dose of pity. And I admit, non-sentient gelatinous lumps are deceptively negligible. Other than their role in the food chain, they seem like a mistake of the natural world.
But, perhaps as a child, you encountered a curiosity of this goop. Or perhaps, the seeming impossibility of their existence continues to stump your adult imagination. While for most folks this remains the extent of interest and intrigue, I challenge them to imagine a world where mollusks never existed. In this world, Mesoamerican pyramids would have crumbled, the ancient Roman silk trade would have faded, and nearly 4,000 years of international trade would have likely congealed and bankrupted. Likewise, I challenge you to fathom something far more profound than non-sentient slime. Indeed, this otherwise boring creature inadvertently shaped both material and intangible human culture spanning over thousands upon thousands of years.
Now it’s time to explain. As an exercise, let’s try to swap minds with the prehistoric snail, being one type of mollusk. We begin in the Cambrian period, surrounded by ocean-dwelling invertebrates like worms and trilobites. Over the course of 541 million years, we witnessed massive evolutionary developments both of mollusks and innumerable other life forms. We found ourselves hunted and devoured not only by fish and other snail species, but also by early Hominids. Then, about 100,000 years ago, something truly uncanny occurred: we sparked an unlikely relationship with human ancestors. Indeed, these human ancestors appear to have used us as an early form of body-adornment. Hence, our prehistoric relationship with humans formally began. Over time, we became quite popular sources of food, tools, and weaponry. Far more recently, however, we snails revolutionized trade among humans. We burdened the backs of Chinese, European, North African, and Indopacific tradesmen who used us as common currency. Yes, millions of us circulated a global economy for nearly 4,000 years. Some communities in North Africa were believed to have used this currency up until the mid-twentieth century. This, of course, means that snails lasted longer than any other form of currency to ever have existed.
On the other side of the world, we found ourselves mixed with clay and limestone to shoulder the pyramids of pre-Columbian empires. Meanwhile, some Indigenous North Americans used us to codify contracts and represent prestige and respect among tribal peers. We were squeezed to make dyes for ancient Roman silk, and we adorned jewelry circulated in a debt-driven economy of the Trobriand Islands of Papua New Guinea.
More recently, we have been boiled and baked into the apparently delicious French delicacy, “escargot a la bourguignon” and we have been hand selected to be studied, traded, and displayed in both private and museum collections. In fact, some of us are so rare that we can almost exclusively be collected from the stomachaches of mysterious deep-ocean fish. We represent thousands of years of artistic expression, symbolism, and mythology as well as centuries of nepharios trading practices geared towards bankrupting nobility by using us as collateral.
In the Medio period of Mesoamérica, still unknown travelers brought millions of us from the coasts of modern day eastern South America all the way to the deserts of Chihuahua New Mexico. We were then carefully hoarded by the elite to guarantee a prosperous afterlife.
To this day, historians whisper tales and lore of our long lost artifacts. For instance, legend has it that Dutch architects modeled spiral staircases off of our internal morphology. This discovery allegedly inspired taxonomists to later name the Epitoniidae variety Mollusks, “Wentletrap,” directly translating to “spiral staircase” from Dutch. This symbolism stretches over more than just language, however. Timeless paintings, sculptures, and drawings depict our carcasses as untenable points of beauty. We are played as instruments and cared for as pets, and we are universally admired by travelers and beachcombers alike. This is but a fragment of our relationship with human culture from around the globe.
Like any cultural phenomenon, our relationship with humans teaches them about themselves. Indeed, we help them grapple with meaning and we help them conceptualize what it truly means to be human. But human-folk from every discipline and walk of life have bedated the concept of meaning. Some humans, for example, have begun to shift their perspective away from universal truths and rather define meaning as something neither stagnant nor objective. Through this perspective, known as poststructuralism, humans cannot describe any aspect of their lives as universally or self-evidently meaningful. Instead, the meaning behind the human condition rests in their ability to craft meaning itself. The human condition isn’t established through some measurable and specific ritual, object, policy, or tale. Instead, their condition could be described as a relational process. In other words, their meaning isn’t found in the “what,” but rather the “how.”
So what does this mean… the “what” and the “how?” Simply put, it’s not about what stories they tell, but how they tell them and how accessible they make them. It’s not about what or who holds power, but rather how they go about assigning it. It’s not about what they find beautiful, but how they ascribe beauty to things and how they justify that decision. And that’s really it, isn’t it? Is the human condition nothing more than our drive to make meaning? Every culture has a different response to these questions, yet all cultures must grapple with them. This is why mollusks are so fascinating: we have been used since the dawn of human existence to manifest meaning. To humans, we should be far more than a pretty allegory… we fundamentally depicted the history of the human race. Now, after embarking on this thought experiment, let us return to our human minds. We can now see that we have utilized mollusks to overcome physical impossibilities and materialize unbelievably complex social structures. Whether you are fascinated by biology or the natural world; whether you wish to explore their cultural implications within a select tribe, community, or empire; or whether you search to more deeply understand the mechanisms of the human condition, you may very well find Mollusks a convenient starting point. As you navigate this website and traverse through the unfathomable presentations of biology, I invite you to keep these histories and perspectives in mind.
Top Specimen: Spondylus Americanus
Second Specimen: Callanaiti Disjecta
Third Specimen: Charaonia Tritonis
Last Specimen: Argonauta Cornutus
Contact
For information regarding events and interactive seminars, feel free to contact me! Note that you are not required to enter your phone number, but can do so if you find it more convenient or appropriate for your request!