Keeping our Isla Bonita with bottle sculptures – it all began with a conscious mind of keeping the island clean that Chris Emmanuel got the idea of creating his first wonderful sculpture of a Spotted Eagle Ray made out of plastic bottles in March 12, 2010.
Chris’ first sculpture of a Spotted Eagle Ray took him about a month to collect the bottles and 20 hours to complete the sculpture and it has been sold! Chris managed to intricately weave 72 clear plastic water bottles together to form a magnificent ray and used the bottle caps as the sea creature’s spots.
Eight months later Chris has a new bottle sculpture to boast, a bottlenose dolphin. This sculpture took him a month to complete. He used 20 large – 1 liter plastic bottles, 48 small -500ml plastic bottles and 13 bottle caps.
“This time, looking for bottles along the shoreline on the beachfront was very difficult,” commented Chris to Ambergris Today. “It’s a good thing, because this idea of making sculptures began with me wanting to promote awareness of recycling and keeping our island clean. I had to go at the back of the island (west side – lagoon area) to find plastic bottles for this project.”
Chris Emmanuel has been contacted by the Caye Caulker Ocean Academy for him to display his sculpture and talk about the importance of recycling. The school is working in having a small recycling project to make products to be sold as a school fundraiser.
Chris has gotten an offer from an interested buyer. Anyone interested in seeing the sculpture can do so by visiting his art gallery at the Sunbreeze Hotel or call 226-2262.
