I’m obsessed with broken shells: they are marked by life, like our skin

Nathalie Frost selects damaged shells to turn into artworks by holding them up to the sea on the south-east coast of England. Photograph: Rebecca Brooker/The Guardian

I have collected hundreds and hundreds of broken shells. I select them by holding them up to the sea, looking at the shape of them and deciding whether I want to work with them – and whether they will work with my thread.

To me, a shell that is broken is more interesting than a shell that is perfect. A broken shell has lived a life. I can see what the sea has done to it, what has happened to it on the rocks and stones. We spend so much of our lives searching for or trying to obtain perfection. But as I’ve got older, I’ve realised that perfection is unattainable – and the search isn’t worth it.