Recycling

A Kaleidoscope Wind Chime with handcrafted copper chimes and a beach stone clapper. Sometimes inspiration comes from facing unexpected problems.

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Small pieces of beach or sea glass are fairly common along the beaches here on the Pacific Coast. Most often I guess someone tosses a bottle, and the waves roll the glass over and over and the sand and pebbles smooth the sharp edges and give the pieces a mat finish. So something nasty turns into something beautiful, and many people enjoy walking and collecting these small pieces. Beach glass is sometimes even used for jewelry, often selling for a lot of money.

My youngest son used to collect everything ~ feathers, coins, bottle caps, and he also had a large beach glass collection. One day when he was poking through his glass collection, I had a close look at it and was struck by the beauty of many of these little jewels. From there, I went on to find a way to make my own beach-style glass, which I now use extensively in my art work.

My goal was to make large pieces. After much trial and error, I succeeded in finding a way. I Sculpt the glass, to get the size and shape I want. Especially when I was a novice, this created considerable waste. In the early years this was not a big problem because we had good glass recycling here on the Sunshine Coast. But that ended, and I was horrified one day taking a large amount to the landfill (where I had been told they still recycled glass) when I was told broken glass would have to be dumped in the pit. I didn't like that my work was adding to the landfill problem.

Sometimes ideas come from facing unexpected problems. This waste glass inspired one of my most popular ideas. I started treating the small pieces and using them in what I call my 'kaleidoscope' wind chimes and my freestanding sunshine catchers. These have been so popular that they have more than taken care of my 'waste' glass dilemma. So instead of tossing glass into the landfill, I am happy to have found a solution that brings more beauty to the world, and happiness to my customers.