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Kathy Timberlake, or KT as her friends call her,
moved to Key West 23 years ago. She's been a nurse
for 27 years, but in the past few years has been
developing her more artistic side. Easily
distracted by shiny objects, she started collecting
beach glass and found objects and started making
lampshades. Next, KT started making tiaras and
headdresses for the many festive occasions that are
celebrated in Key West, FL; and now Sonoma CA.
The majority of the beach glass and other treasures
she uses come from a local Key West beach that was once
used as a dump over a hundred years ago. It's like
an archeological site to her. She finds everything
from old pottery to cutlery, doorknobs, buttons, slate
from old roofs and ceramic doll parts. The glass
ranges from old medicine and liquor bottles to old
fishing buoys and ornamental glass objects.
KT finds anything one might imagine a Victorian and
turn of the last century house might have been furnished
with. Some of the glass has a fused or melted
quality to it, meaning it probably was in a fire.
Some of this glass may be from the great fire of 1886
that burned much of Key West. It's fascinating to
imagine where some of these objects come from and to
whom they once belonged. KT likes to think that in
her unusual way she is helping to preserve just a little
bit of Key West history with the use of these artifacts.
It just goes to probe the old adage that one man's trash
is another's treasure. |
