Banana Tree Films: Trash to Treasures

This is a spotlight video on Maho Bay Camp's glass studio artists. On an island with no recycling plant, Maho Bay's Art Studio is taking loads of trash and turning it in to beautiful art. The glass studio is just one of the creative ways Maho Bay Camps recycles glass bottles and jars. Maho, the world's first eco-tourism resort, has always worked hard at innovating new ways to protect the surrounding land and delicate marine environment.
During the production of our feature documentary Borrowed Time, we'll be sharing these short stories to give our audience a glimpse of Maho's people including guests, staff & local community while also highlighting the uniqueness of this special place.

www.BananaTreeFilms.com

Harmony Studios & counter tops

Those of you that have stayed with us before and are planning a stay with us in Harmony Studios this winter may notice something a little different in your units this year.

"building" on the theme of using as many crushed glass bottles as we can around Maho and St. John, our latest project includes making counter tops like the one pictured above. The process of collecting glass, crushing the glass, creating a mold, mixing the cement with crushed glass, pouring, curing, and finally sanding/polishing the final result takes a great deal of time, but the final result speaks for itself!

You may notice a few pieces of glass within the counter top that don't exactly look like crushed glass; our talented glass blowers have created many different unique "pulled glass" pieces that have then been sliced like bread and carefully placed in the cement before it hardens. And of course the soap dish was made here as well!

If you're curious what it is we're working on directly across from the glass studio then come ask us, we're probably working on a counter top like the one above.

More local publicity for our Art Center

On-StJohn.com has posted a great video today about our recycled glass program here at Maho. Mariel & Greg, our resident glassblowers, get quite a bit of facetime as they create a palm tree mug and tree frog. Towards the second half of the video is our newest form of recycling: mixing glass with concrete to create table tops.

Those in the area this week should definitely stop by and watch one of our demonstrations, now on Monday or Friday nights. Of course if you're interested in taking a class like Jeff & Russ are doing in the video you'll have to call us ahead of time or stop by first thing upon your arrival.

island exposure

Last week Jeff & Russ of the very popular island blog on-stjohn.com were here at Maho learning about our glass blowing and taking a class. Mariel & Greg, our two resident glass blowers, where here to show them how to "pull a flower." Video coming soon they promise!

Maho Bay Camps Glass Studio

Cordially invites you to attend

An opening reception

For Gregory Lee and Mariel Bass

Friday May 6, 2011

5 pm to 8 pm

at Bajo el Sol Gallery

Mongoose Junction

Guest suggestions update #2

Our original post about not recycling newspaper or plastic bottles seemed to draw a good amount of attention online, through emails, and talk around camp. I realized today that there is a way in which we recycle newspapers here at Maho: for use in glassblowing! In fact, it appears as though we import newspapers from at least one other source on island to meet our demand in glassblowing.

If you've ever watched a demonstration here you've probably seen our glassblowers use many different tools to reshape the glass while it's hot. One of the "tools" they use is folded-up newspapers, which they soak in water. Since forming the hot glass with your hand is impossible, wet and folded newspaper is the next best thing!

Pictured above is a demonstration in progress, below is a piece of folded newspaper (the business section) that has been put to use.

Guest suggestions

From time to time we'll get some interesting suggestions from guests in our guest surveys and comment boxes. Occasionally we'll see the same suggestions 2 or 3 times in one batch of 30 or so surveys.

The question that kept coming up last week revolved around recycling plastic bottles, perhaps our all-time most popular question/request/suggestion depending on the wording. This week: "please start recycling newspaper and plastic bottles. I saw an employee just pitching these from the recycling bins into regular trash cans."

As crazy as it may sound to most of those reading this, St. John and the USVI as a whole does not recycle anything. There's no separating trash either at home or at the dump, everything goes in the trash. To each and every vacationer on this island our lack of recycling just doesn't make any sense. For the past 20+ years recycling has just been something you do now, how could there still be places that don't recycle, right? Coming from anywhere in the U.S., a place where the vast majority of waste is recycled and very little is actually "trash" to a place like St. John where everything is thrown into trash cans can be a little drastic for most vacationers.

To be fair there was a community effort a couple years ago (and is still in operation) to start recycling aluminum soda cans. The bins, the collection, the signs, everything is all done by volunteers. So yes, on a volunteer basis we do now recycle something on this island!

Maho Bay Camps as an eco-resort has always had a hard time dealing with waste and trying to reduce the amount of trash we generate when recycling on the island doesn't exist. We've done a considerable amount since our inception, perhaps the holy grail of which would be the crushing and melting of glass collected here on camp that is turned into art & practical wares, then sold here at Maho and online.

So the plastic bottles and newspapers being pitched into the trash can by our employees? If anyone has a suggestion on what to do with the hundreds of plastic bottles we still collect weekly please let us know!

So far?

1) we don't sell 20oz plastic soda bottles (only cans). Last year we sold 9,360 20oz soda bottles!

2) our bottled water selection is down to 2 different sizes, one of which is made entirely from plants

3) the only newspapers we carry at Maho are a weekly paper and a monthly paper/magazine

One idea we've had so far for the plastic bottles would be to carry one or two home in your suitcase when departing and recycle them once home. We could have a bin available next to registration and upon checking-out guests could squeeze one or two into their suitcases. Not quite the solution to our island recycling problem but a start?

The good news is that when I went out to take a picture for this post today at 2:30pm (6 hours after we collected trash & recycling) it took looking at 3 separate recycling bins on camp before finding a plastic bottle in one of them! I'm hoping it means not having so many plastic options in the store has paid off, instead of the other option: we're really good at just throwing them straight into the trash now.

Visiting Artists

One of the most popular nightly activities here at Maho would have to be the Glass Blowing Demonstrations. Each evening from 6:30-9:30pm on Tuesday through Saturday a pair of artists work together creating both usable art and decorative pieces out of hand blown glass, all while interacting and discussing their techniques with our guests. The bottles are of course collected, cleaned and melted right here at Maho - more details on that process later!

In addition to our two full time resident glass blowing staff we typically have one or two visiting artists with us in the Winter months. This month we are lucky enough to have Ann Mitchell and Scott Kempton. If you have a chance to be down here or if you live on the island be sure to stop by and check them out!

Scott Kempton (2/16/11-3/2/11)

Owner and Principle Artist of Blacksheep Glass located in San Diego, CA.
Although classically trained Kempton loves to experiment with new designs and combines a variety of techniques in his work. He looks to the beaches and southern California landscape for inspiration, which is evident in pieces such as his “Coral Reef” and “Aquarium” paperweights and “Bird of Paradise” perfume bottles.

Scott Kempton studied glass art at colleges and workshops in California, Corning New York, and Canada. Although classically trained, he loves to experiment with new designs and combines a variety of techniques in his work.

Scott says of his work “I love to work with multiple layers of glass. The blending of colors and textures gives depth and excitement to glass art that is not found in any other medium. I create glass to be handled. When I create a piece glass art of I am constantly aware that it will be looked at from every angle, and that each view needs to be different and exciting.”

Ann L Mitchell (2/1/11-3/2/11)

Based in Poway, California, Ann Mitchell is an experienced glass artist constantly working to create new pieces and learn new techniques . “for me the process of creating art forms from a flowing, hot bit of molten glass opens my creativity to the fullest.” Ann has a B.A. in studio art from UMKC university and post grad workshops in glass. Since 1998 she has worked in the field of off hand glass-blowing professionally. “I like to incorporate nature in my artwork. My hobbies of diving and nature walks is the inspiration for the sealife (I create).”

*(more info/photos at www.glassartalmstudio.com)

Visiting Artist Sam Stark

The month of December brings a special treat to our guests, staff & resident glass blowers; Sam Stark is here as our visiting artist for the month. Not that we don't appreciate and enjoy watching our resident glass blowers, we certainly do!

As a visiting artist Sam will help to develop new product designs and teach our full-time resident glass workers how to make them. It always helps to have new perspectives and ideas flowing as we try to create art which will be both entertaining to watch and of course purchase. It also helps to have that extra hand this time of year, breaking down those empty Corona bottles you've enjoyed and placed in our recycling containers. Sam has told us he finds inspiration for his most recent glass pieces while snorkeling with his family around Little & Big Maho Beach; which is certainly evident in those incredible octopuses he's been making. Come watch him and see for yourself as he re-creates his favorite sea-life and underwater scenes in our evening glass blowing demonstrations.

Some background on Sam: Sam owns and operates his own glass studio in Ashville, North Carolina where he lives with his wife Oksana and son Max. Sam has been educated by and worked for some of the greatest glass artists in the U.S and abroad such as Dale Chihuly, Lino Tagliapeietra, and Lordano Rosin, to name a few. While Sam's body of work range from simple functional pieces to large scale, abstract, installations, all of his glass art reveal his special interest in the harmonization of layered colors and the way they transmit light. More info at Stark Art Glass

Sam particularly enjoys interacting with and educating our guests at demonstrations so don't miss out on the opportunity meet this accomplished artist and watch him transform yesterday's beer bottles into timeless pieces of art.

Free public Glass blowing demonstrations Tuesday- Saturday 6:30-9:30pm

Coming soon... our guest artist for the month of January: Brent Craig (aka: Beagles)



Pictured is one mean looking octopus, quickly becoming a staff & guest favorite, as well as a new jellyfish paperweight.

online store

The Maho store is back online! Our Art Center has been busy lately as we start heading into season preparing and filling all those holiday orders. Hand blown glass, fabric and paper art, pottery and clay works as well as our new Maho Bay T-shirts and hats are all available now. If you have any ideas for other items please let us know!

Glass Blowing

We were recently informed that a video of our glass blowers was on YouTube. The glass they are using is recycled Corona and Carib bottles. The glass blowers are Jake and Greg.