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hongkongwillie's Shop Announcement hongkongwillie.com Hong Kong Willie purses, handbags, beach bags, funky handbgas,handmade handbags,and all handbags are green handbags. A purse handbag or beach bag. Art of Hong Kong Willie: preservation represented many ways, here for example: Hippie Bags, Green Bags, Beach Bags, Hippie Upcycled Bracelets. Follow the story. Art in itself. Hong Kong Willie. "Hippie Artist of the 60's In The Now". Hippie Artist and Folk Artist, Living The Life of Using Objects For Many Uses. Look at The Travels of Life. Contact the Artists @ (813) 770-4794 HongKongWillie [!at] hotmail.com
Bio hongkongwillie.com Hong Kong Willie. Hippie artist of the 60’s in the now. Hippie artist and Florida folk artist, living the life of using objects for many uses. Look at the travels of life.
Hong Kong Willie. The name of the artist. In 1958 his mother took Hong Kong Willie to an art class. The name started then. An art teacher when doing crafts out of Gerber baby bottles, made a statement, in Hong Kong reuse was common. At that time he thought this was very interesting. His father had low-land, at that time landfills were common also. The county had told Hong Kong Willie’s father, it was safe, but as we now know this was not so. Something can come from bad to be good. Hong Kong Willie the name came from that art teacher impressing on that young mind that objects made for one use could be for many other uses. Hong Kong for the neat concept. Willie for an American name. So for many years Hong Kong Willie had a life of reuse. Hong Kong Willie saw forms in a different light, His life now was meaningful, knowing this was and would be his life. Art made from found objects, making less of a footprint on this world. Art and art teachers, HOW IMPORTANT. For the ones that have, and the ones who have not. Media can be found. Now 50 years later, we know now being green is important. We need to look at this very carefully. Our children and our world need a different understanding. Objects can be used in many different ways. Hong Kong Willie the tons of objects in his life that have been used, without much change, So for that art teacher what she did for my life. Thank You. I still have the Gerber baby bottle till this day. Hong Kong Willie.
Hong Kong Willie Key West Artist and Tampa Tourist Attraction. Hong Kong Willie: Group of artists telling how to use objects for many different purposes. Looking outside of the box, learning to find solutions in a positive way. Complaining without a solution is like trying to wake a dead man. Nothing is going to happen. The solution to leaving less of a foot print on this earth is left to each one of us. Finding the positive side and focusing positive energy is change for the good. Hong Kong Willie has for many years looked outside of the box. Take a look at the other story told by University of South Florida on ways to change and the social impact we all can make. To live and help and not complain and spend that energy to leave less of a foot print is a good thing.
All contributed content © Hong Kong Willie
google hong kong willie
News: Urban Explorer
The zen of junk
A Tampa couple devotes itself to creating something from nothing
Published 12.06.06
By Alex Pickett
enlarge
Alex Pickett
ROADSIDE ATTRACTION: Located off East Fletcher Road between hotel chains and high-end office parks is the gift shop and folk art gallery Hong Kong Willie's.
Drive south on I-75, look to the right around East Fletcher Avenue, and you can't miss it. The tree appears first, hundreds of buoys wrapped around its branches, resembling a sort of Dr. Seuss-ian Christmas ornament. Then the rest of the 20,000 buoys come into view -- thousands of strands of the multicolored foam balls stretching from the tree to two wooden shacks, hanging from their roofs and walls, and stretched out over the property.
Strewn about the lawn is a menagerie of surfboards, car doors, CB radios, wooden sculptures and painted signs. A 1979 Ford pickup sits in the front driveway, painted with a rainbow of colors, four racks of antlers affixed to its roof. An old stuffed caribou sits in a lawn chair beckoning visitors.
Of the thousands of motorists who pass by this eclectic landmark off Exit 266 every day, few stop in the funky gift shop and Key West-themed folk art gallery that is Hong Kong Willie's. But this is not your typical roadside store selling cheesy Florida magnets and beach T-shirts (although they have those, too). From the moment the owners come out to greet you, it's clear that for them this isn't just a business -- it's a lifestyle.
As I step out of my car, Joe Brown ambles toward me wearing a red Hawaiian shirt and khaki shorts. With his disheveled shoulder-length brown hair and strong jaw line, Brown, 56, looks a lot like Mel Gibson in Braveheart. He ends most of his sentences with "Do you follow me?" and stares with wild gray eyes until you nod in agreement. His 46-year-old wife, Kim, who bears a strong resemblance to Grace Slick, sits near the shop's open sign, branding her latest creation. Wearing large sunglasses, she gives a smile, hardly looking up.
Joe and Kim -- Tampa natives -- bought the half-acre property off Fletcher Avenue and Morris Bridge Road in 1985. For the next two decades, the Browns operated A-24 Hour Bait and Tackle, living on the premises and bagging worms for K-Mart and Wal-Mart to make a few extra bucks. But in 2001, they decided to abandon fish food to pursue the fickle business of art, although they will tell you Hong Kong Willie's was always "part of the journey."
"We were artists," says Joe. "We were born that way. We had no choice. You follow me?"
The underlying theme of Hong Kong Willie's is creating art out of objects destined for the landfill, and while browsing the items, I get the feeling the Browns are trying to make a point rather than a sale.
"Thirty percent of the gifts given will be in the dumpster by next Christmas," Joe says. "Most Christmas gifts will be given because they think they have to. Very few will have a social impact."
Every item at Hong Kong Willie's is either art made out of an object destined for the landfill or products that other companies were throwing away and the Browns retrieved before they made it to the dumpster. But don't call this recycled art. The Browns prefer "preservation."
Recycling implies the material will be used for the same purpose. "If you get stuck in that word, then you get stuck in that form," Joe explains. Instead, the Browns create a whole new use for an item that would have been otherwise thrown away.
Kim looks up from her painting after Joe finishes his long ramble. "We've always been able to take nothing and make something out of it," she says.
Although most people assume Joe is "Hong Kong Willie," he says the name refers to the origin of junk: Hong Kong produces much of the useless merchandise that Americans buy and quickly throw away, he says. So it's up to the Willies of the world -- i.e. the Browns and other conservationists -- to find new uses for the trash.
"All of us who believe what we believe is Hong Kong Willie," Joe says.
The gift shop is a space not much bigger than a tool shed, cluttered with handmade candles, pottery, ceramic figures and deer skulls painted tie-dye style. Joe, who's not content to allow me to wander by myself, darts from item to item, sharing each one's origins. One of the first objects he shows me is an old scuba tank cut in half, stenciled with yellow and purple spray paint with a weighted rope attached on the inside. What would have been a heavy addition to a landfill or junkyard, the Browns now sell as a nautical-themed bell. Another popular item: a used Starbucks Frappuccino bottle filled with sand and shells, and the words "Florida Beachfront Property" written in paint on it.
"Is it really pragmatic to say this had one life -- to have Frappuccino in it?" he says, holding up the $3 gift. "That's not true. You follow me?"
Joe picks up a droopy glass vase -- the result of an Arizona Ice Tea bottle stuck in a kiln for too long. He says it's a collector's item: Only 300 were made and none look alike.
"People really want something that is one of a kind and something that means something," he says, holding up the vase and pointing to a stack of Beanie Babies. "Which one is the real collectible? The one that cannot be copied or the one that is mass-produced just on a small scale? You follow me?"
Most of the materials the Browns work with come from Key West. Every few months they hop in the pickup, drive the 425 miles to the Keys and start looking for the junk no one else wants: used dive tanks, the lobster trap buoys, burlap bags and even old wooden planks from ships or homes destroyed by storms.
In fact, the latter is one of their biggest sellers. They bring back an imperfect piece of lumber, slap some urethane on it and Kim paints everything from colorful fish and birds to old Key West landmarks on it. Every piece is branded, marked with a lobster cage tag and affixed with brass rings or forks with which to hang them. In the building opposite the gift shop, among stuffed animals and fish (Joe was once a taxidermist), 30 of these painted planks hang from the walls.
Customers are few at Hong Kong Willie's, but the Browns say they're doing well. They never try to push their art on anyone, figuring that if someone stops and buys something, it was meant to be. ("A piece of art is a love affair," Kim says.) They count Gaspar's Patio Bar and Grille in Temple Terrace as one of their best customers. Their other business comes from Tampa residents looking to add a tiki feel to their backyards. Among Joe's most popular creations are old car doors outfitted with waterproof speakers. A few Key West bars bought the unique sound systems to hang from their ceilings.
But the Browns are not just content to sell their art to passersby -- they want to live the ideals that inspire their art. The couple is working on getting their business off the electrical grid and powered completely by solar energy. Kim wants to start a coffee and ice cream shop with free wireless Internet to bring in likeminded people. Joe wants to be in the Guinness Book of World Records for hanging the greatest number of buoys to a structure (it's not a category yet). And they're always trying to find new uses for the trash they see lining area roads.
"We're not just sitting out here being weird," Joe says suddenly. "We're actually taking objects and making these thousands of people say, 'What's that?' We're doing it because it's the right thing to do."
His eyes get wide.
"You follow me?"
hongkongwillie.com
ETSY SHOPS HONG KONG WILLIE
ETSY SHOPS, HANDMADE HANDBAGS,GREEN ARTIST HONG KONG WILLIE
REPORTER PACKAGE USF
HONG KONG WILLIE ON
ETSY SHOPS HONG KONG WILLIE CALL HONG KONG WILLIE GALLERY 813 770 4794
ETSY SHOPS HONG KONG WILLIE hongkongwillie.com
hongkongwillie's Shop Announcement Hong Kong Willie purses, handbags, beach bags, funky handbgas,handmade handbags,and all handbags are green handbags. A purse handbag or beach bag. Art of Hong Kong Willie: preservation represented many ways, here for example: Hippie Bags, Green Bags, Beach Bags, Hippie Upcycled Bracelets. Follow the story. Art in itself. Hong Kong Willie. "Hippie Artist of the 60's In The Now". Hippie Artist and Folk Artist, Living The Life of Using Objects For Many Uses. Look at The Travels of Life. Contact the Artists @ (813) 770-4794 HongKongWillie [!at] hotmail.com
ETSY SHOPS
ETSY SHOPS HONG KONG WILLIE PROFILE
Bio Hong Kong Willie. Hippie artist of the 60’s in the now. Hippie artist and Florida folk artist, living the life of using objects for many uses. Look at the travels of life.
Hong Kong Willie. The name of the artist. In 1958 his mother took Hong Kong Willie to an art class. The name started then. An art teacher when doing crafts out of Gerber baby bottles, made a statement, in Hong Kong reuse was common. At that time he thought this was very interesting. His father had low-land, at that time landfills were common also. The county had told Hong Kong Willie’s father, it was safe, but as we now know this was not so. Something can come from bad to be good. Hong Kong Willie the name came from that art teacher impressing on that young mind that objects made for one use could be for many other uses. Hong Kong for the neat concept. Willie for an American name. So for many years Hong Kong Willie had a life of reuse. Hong Kong Willie saw forms in a different light, His life now was meaningful, knowing this was and would be his life. Art made from found objects, making less of a footprint on this world. Art and art teachers, HOW IMPORTANT. For the ones that have, and the ones who have not. Media can be found. Now 50 years later, we know now being green is important. We need to look at this very carefully. Our children and our world need a different understanding. Objects can be used in many different ways. Hong Kong Willie the tons of objects in his life that have been used, without much change, So for that art teacher what she did for my life. Thank You. I still have the Gerber baby bottle till this day. Hong Kong Willie.
ETSY SHOPS
Hong Kong Willie Key West Artist and Tampa Tourist Attraction. Hong Kong Willie: Group of artists telling how to use objects for many different purposes. Looking outside of the box, learning to find solutions in a positive way. Complaining without a solution is like trying to wake a dead man. Nothing is going to happen. The solution to leaving less of a foot print on this earth is left to each one of us. Finding the positive side and focusing positive energy is change for the good. Hong Kong Willie has for many years looked outside of the box. Take a look at the other story told by University of South Florida on ways to change and the social impact we all can make. To live and help and not complain and spend that energy to leave less of a foot print is a good thing.
All contributed content © Hong Kong Willie
GOOGLE HONG KONG WILLIE
ETSY SHOPS
TEMPLE TERRACE BEACON
;
TEMPLE TERRACE BEACON
TEMPLE TERRACE BEACON
By Courtney Allen, Correspondent
Tens of thousands of commuters and tourists pass by the large buoy tree daily, visible from Interstate 75 and Fletcher Avenue. The buoy tree is more than just a creative landmark. It represents a movement towards preservation as an art and tropical conch way of life.
Joe and Kim Brown are originally from Key West. Natives of the Keys are nicknamed conchs. They bought the half-acre property in 1985. It was once a bait shop but since fishing has evolved into a more expensive hobby involving permits and increasingly sophisticated fishing gear, the Browns trasnformed their business into a gift shop in 2001. They call it Hong Kong Willie.
They’ve been building onto the tree strung with buoys ever since.
“All buoys are numbered and have a specific color when they are made,” said Brown, pointing to her toppling creation. “They have to.”
The colorful floats have a new life beyond fishing and navigation. The Browns have been salvaging unwanted items since their move from Key West and they proudly display their works before the eyes of Florida residents and visitors.
And just as important as each buoy is, so too are the rusty surfboards and wrecked ship relics carefully positioned about the lawn. They all tell a story that couldn’t be told from any landfill. No wall goes unpainted, no corner undecorated on the tiny property off Morris Bridge Road.
Kim Brown finished sewing a handbag she made from a coffee bag, stacking them on top of each other in preparation for their sale.
“If people bought these to go shopping, it could save 300 to 400 plastic bags that would otherwise go to a landfill,” Brown said.
Their small gift shop is filled with original glasswork, ceramics and candles.
Although their business isn’t bustling with tourists, they make decorations for restaurants such as Gaspar’s, a restaurant on 56th Street in Temple Terrace that connects to a deep-sea theme.
“I always wondered what this place was because I see it every day. I think it’s cool that they don’t need to buy anything to make a living,” said Corey Lyons, a sales representative who passes the shop on his daily commute.
The preservation art movement the couple partakes in is not just about reusing old items. They convert artifacts into entirely new concepts. “We don’t like to use the word recycling. We are conservationists,” Brown said.
Hippie Bag - Hong Kong Willie Hippie Re-Use Purse
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hongkongwillie's Shop Announcement hongkongwillie.com Hong Kong Willie purses, handbags, beach bags, funky handbgas,handmade handbags,and all handbags are green handbags. A purse handbag or beach bag. Art of Hong Kong Willie: preservation represented many ways, here for example: Hippie Bags, Green Bags, Beach Bags, Hippie Upcycled Bracelets. Follow the story. Art in itself. Hong Kong Willie. "Hippie Artist of the 60's In The Now". Hippie Artist and Folk Artist, Living The Life of Using Objects For Many Uses. Look at The Travels of Life. Contact the Artists @ (813) 770-4794 HongKongWillie [!at] hotmail.com
Bio hongkongwillie.com Hong Kong Willie. Hippie artist of the 60’s in the now. Hippie artist and Florida folk artist, living the life of using objects for many uses. Look at the travels of life.
Hong Kong Willie. The name of the artist. In 1958 his mother took Hong Kong Willie to an art class. The name started then. An art teacher when doing crafts out of Gerber baby bottles, made a statement, in Hong Kong reuse was common. At that time he thought this was very interesting. His father had low-land, at that time landfills were common also. The county had told Hong Kong Willie’s father, it was safe, but as we now know this was not so. Something can come from bad to be good. Hong Kong Willie the name came from that art teacher impressing on that young mind that objects made for one use could be for many other uses. Hong Kong for the neat concept. Willie for an American name. So for many years Hong Kong Willie had a life of reuse. Hong Kong Willie saw forms in a different light, His life now was meaningful, knowing this was and would be his life. Art made from found objects, making less of a footprint on this world. Art and art teachers, HOW IMPORTANT. For the ones that have, and the ones who have not. Media can be found. Now 50 years later, we know now being green is important. We need to look at this very carefully. Our children and our world need a different understanding. Objects can be used in many different ways. Hong Kong Willie the tons of objects in his life that have been used, without much change, So for that art teacher what she did for my life. Thank You. I still have the Gerber baby bottle till this day. Hong Kong Willie.
Hong Kong Willie Key West Artist and Tampa Tourist Attraction. Hong Kong Willie: Group of artists telling how to use objects for many different purposes. Looking outside of the box, learning to find solutions in a positive way. Complaining without a solution is like trying to wake a dead man. Nothing is going to happen. The solution to leaving less of a foot print on this earth is left to each one of us. Finding the positive side and focusing positive energy is change for the good. Hong Kong Willie has for many years looked outside of the box. Take a look at the other story told by University of South Florida on ways to change and the social impact we all can make. To live and help and not complain and spend that energy to leave less of a foot print is a good thing.
All contributed content © Hong Kong Willie
google hong kong willie
News: Urban Explorer
The zen of junk
A Tampa couple devotes itself to creating something from nothing
Published 12.06.06
By Alex Pickett
enlarge
Alex Pickett
ROADSIDE ATTRACTION: Located off East Fletcher Road between hotel chains and high-end office parks is the gift shop and folk art gallery Hong Kong Willie's.
Drive south on I-75, look to the right around East Fletcher Avenue, and you can't miss it. The tree appears first, hundreds of buoys wrapped around its branches, resembling a sort of Dr. Seuss-ian Christmas ornament. Then the rest of the 20,000 buoys come into view -- thousands of strands of the multicolored foam balls stretching from the tree to two wooden shacks, hanging from their roofs and walls, and stretched out over the property.
Strewn about the lawn is a menagerie of surfboards, car doors, CB radios, wooden sculptures and painted signs. A 1979 Ford pickup sits in the front driveway, painted with a rainbow of colors, four racks of antlers affixed to its roof. An old stuffed caribou sits in a lawn chair beckoning visitors.
Of the thousands of motorists who pass by this eclectic landmark off Exit 266 every day, few stop in the funky gift shop and Key West-themed folk art gallery that is Hong Kong Willie's. But this is not your typical roadside store selling cheesy Florida magnets and beach T-shirts (although they have those, too). From the moment the owners come out to greet you, it's clear that for them this isn't just a business -- it's a lifestyle.
As I step out of my car, Joe Brown ambles toward me wearing a red Hawaiian shirt and khaki shorts. With his disheveled shoulder-length brown hair and strong jaw line, Brown, 56, looks a lot like Mel Gibson in Braveheart. He ends most of his sentences with "Do you follow me?" and stares with wild gray eyes until you nod in agreement. His 46-year-old wife, Kim, who bears a strong resemblance to Grace Slick, sits near the shop's open sign, branding her latest creation. Wearing large sunglasses, she gives a smile, hardly looking up.
Joe and Kim -- Tampa natives -- bought the half-acre property off Fletcher Avenue and Morris Bridge Road in 1985. For the next two decades, the Browns operated A-24 Hour Bait and Tackle, living on the premises and bagging worms for K-Mart and Wal-Mart to make a few extra bucks. But in 2001, they decided to abandon fish food to pursue the fickle business of art, although they will tell you Hong Kong Willie's was always "part of the journey."
"We were artists," says Joe. "We were born that way. We had no choice. You follow me?"
The underlying theme of Hong Kong Willie's is creating art out of objects destined for the landfill, and while browsing the items, I get the feeling the Browns are trying to make a point rather than a sale.
"Thirty percent of the gifts given will be in the dumpster by next Christmas," Joe says. "Most Christmas gifts will be given because they think they have to. Very few will have a social impact."
Every item at Hong Kong Willie's is either art made out of an object destined for the landfill or products that other companies were throwing away and the Browns retrieved before they made it to the dumpster. But don't call this recycled art. The Browns prefer "preservation."
Recycling implies the material will be used for the same purpose. "If you get stuck in that word, then you get stuck in that form," Joe explains. Instead, the Browns create a whole new use for an item that would have been otherwise thrown away.
Kim looks up from her painting after Joe finishes his long ramble. "We've always been able to take nothing and make something out of it," she says.
Although most people assume Joe is "Hong Kong Willie," he says the name refers to the origin of junk: Hong Kong produces much of the useless merchandise that Americans buy and quickly throw away, he says. So it's up to the Willies of the world -- i.e. the Browns and other conservationists -- to find new uses for the trash.
"All of us who believe what we believe is Hong Kong Willie," Joe says.
The gift shop is a space not much bigger than a tool shed, cluttered with handmade candles, pottery, ceramic figures and deer skulls painted tie-dye style. Joe, who's not content to allow me to wander by myself, darts from item to item, sharing each one's origins. One of the first objects he shows me is an old scuba tank cut in half, stenciled with yellow and purple spray paint with a weighted rope attached on the inside. What would have been a heavy addition to a landfill or junkyard, the Browns now sell as a nautical-themed bell. Another popular item: a used Starbucks Frappuccino bottle filled with sand and shells, and the words "Florida Beachfront Property" written in paint on it.
"Is it really pragmatic to say this had one life -- to have Frappuccino in it?" he says, holding up the $3 gift. "That's not true. You follow me?"
Joe picks up a droopy glass vase -- the result of an Arizona Ice Tea bottle stuck in a kiln for too long. He says it's a collector's item: Only 300 were made and none look alike.
"People really want something that is one of a kind and something that means something," he says, holding up the vase and pointing to a stack of Beanie Babies. "Which one is the real collectible? The one that cannot be copied or the one that is mass-produced just on a small scale? You follow me?"
Most of the materials the Browns work with come from Key West. Every few months they hop in the pickup, drive the 425 miles to the Keys and start looking for the junk no one else wants: used dive tanks, the lobster trap buoys, burlap bags and even old wooden planks from ships or homes destroyed by storms.
In fact, the latter is one of their biggest sellers. They bring back an imperfect piece of lumber, slap some urethane on it and Kim paints everything from colorful fish and birds to old Key West landmarks on it. Every piece is branded, marked with a lobster cage tag and affixed with brass rings or forks with which to hang them. In the building opposite the gift shop, among stuffed animals and fish (Joe was once a taxidermist), 30 of these painted planks hang from the walls.
Customers are few at Hong Kong Willie's, but the Browns say they're doing well. They never try to push their art on anyone, figuring that if someone stops and buys something, it was meant to be. ("A piece of art is a love affair," Kim says.) They count Gaspar's Patio Bar and Grille in Temple Terrace as one of their best customers. Their other business comes from Tampa residents looking to add a tiki feel to their backyards. Among Joe's most popular creations are old car doors outfitted with waterproof speakers. A few Key West bars bought the unique sound systems to hang from their ceilings.
But the Browns are not just content to sell their art to passersby -- they want to live the ideals that inspire their art. The couple is working on getting their business off the electrical grid and powered completely by solar energy. Kim wants to start a coffee and ice cream shop with free wireless Internet to bring in likeminded people. Joe wants to be in the Guinness Book of World Records for hanging the greatest number of buoys to a structure (it's not a category yet). And they're always trying to find new uses for the trash they see lining area roads.
"We're not just sitting out here being weird," Joe says suddenly. "We're actually taking objects and making these thousands of people say, 'What's that?' We're doing it because it's the right thing to do."
His eyes get wide.
"You follow me?"
hongkongwillie.com
ETSY SHOPS HONG KONG WILLIE
ETSY SHOPS, HANDMADE HANDBAGS,GREEN ARTIST HONG KONG WILLIE
REPORTER PACKAGE USF
HONG KONG WILLIE ON
ETSY SHOPS HONG KONG WILLIE CALL HONG KONG WILLIE GALLERY 813 770 4794
ETSY SHOPS HONG KONG WILLIE hongkongwillie.com
hongkongwillie's Shop Announcement Hong Kong Willie purses, handbags, beach bags, funky handbgas,handmade handbags,and all handbags are green handbags. A purse handbag or beach bag. Art of Hong Kong Willie: preservation represented many ways, here for example: Hippie Bags, Green Bags, Beach Bags, Hippie Upcycled Bracelets. Follow the story. Art in itself. Hong Kong Willie. "Hippie Artist of the 60's In The Now". Hippie Artist and Folk Artist, Living The Life of Using Objects For Many Uses. Look at The Travels of Life. Contact the Artists @ (813) 770-4794 HongKongWillie [!at] hotmail.com
ETSY SHOPS
ETSY SHOPS HONG KONG WILLIE PROFILE
Bio Hong Kong Willie. Hippie artist of the 60’s in the now. Hippie artist and Florida folk artist, living the life of using objects for many uses. Look at the travels of life.
Hong Kong Willie. The name of the artist. In 1958 his mother took Hong Kong Willie to an art class. The name started then. An art teacher when doing crafts out of Gerber baby bottles, made a statement, in Hong Kong reuse was common. At that time he thought this was very interesting. His father had low-land, at that time landfills were common also. The county had told Hong Kong Willie’s father, it was safe, but as we now know this was not so. Something can come from bad to be good. Hong Kong Willie the name came from that art teacher impressing on that young mind that objects made for one use could be for many other uses. Hong Kong for the neat concept. Willie for an American name. So for many years Hong Kong Willie had a life of reuse. Hong Kong Willie saw forms in a different light, His life now was meaningful, knowing this was and would be his life. Art made from found objects, making less of a footprint on this world. Art and art teachers, HOW IMPORTANT. For the ones that have, and the ones who have not. Media can be found. Now 50 years later, we know now being green is important. We need to look at this very carefully. Our children and our world need a different understanding. Objects can be used in many different ways. Hong Kong Willie the tons of objects in his life that have been used, without much change, So for that art teacher what she did for my life. Thank You. I still have the Gerber baby bottle till this day. Hong Kong Willie.
ETSY SHOPS
Hong Kong Willie Key West Artist and Tampa Tourist Attraction. Hong Kong Willie: Group of artists telling how to use objects for many different purposes. Looking outside of the box, learning to find solutions in a positive way. Complaining without a solution is like trying to wake a dead man. Nothing is going to happen. The solution to leaving less of a foot print on this earth is left to each one of us. Finding the positive side and focusing positive energy is change for the good. Hong Kong Willie has for many years looked outside of the box. Take a look at the other story told by University of South Florida on ways to change and the social impact we all can make. To live and help and not complain and spend that energy to leave less of a foot print is a good thing.
All contributed content © Hong Kong Willie
GOOGLE HONG KONG WILLIE
ETSY SHOPS
TEMPLE TERRACE BEACON
;
TEMPLE TERRACE BEACON
TEMPLE TERRACE BEACON
By Courtney Allen, Correspondent
Tens of thousands of commuters and tourists pass by the large buoy tree daily, visible from Interstate 75 and Fletcher Avenue. The buoy tree is more than just a creative landmark. It represents a movement towards preservation as an art and tropical conch way of life.
Joe and Kim Brown are originally from Key West. Natives of the Keys are nicknamed conchs. They bought the half-acre property in 1985. It was once a bait shop but since fishing has evolved into a more expensive hobby involving permits and increasingly sophisticated fishing gear, the Browns trasnformed their business into a gift shop in 2001. They call it Hong Kong Willie.
They’ve been building onto the tree strung with buoys ever since.
“All buoys are numbered and have a specific color when they are made,” said Brown, pointing to her toppling creation. “They have to.”
The colorful floats have a new life beyond fishing and navigation. The Browns have been salvaging unwanted items since their move from Key West and they proudly display their works before the eyes of Florida residents and visitors.
And just as important as each buoy is, so too are the rusty surfboards and wrecked ship relics carefully positioned about the lawn. They all tell a story that couldn’t be told from any landfill. No wall goes unpainted, no corner undecorated on the tiny property off Morris Bridge Road.
Kim Brown finished sewing a handbag she made from a coffee bag, stacking them on top of each other in preparation for their sale.
“If people bought these to go shopping, it could save 300 to 400 plastic bags that would otherwise go to a landfill,” Brown said.
Their small gift shop is filled with original glasswork, ceramics and candles.
Although their business isn’t bustling with tourists, they make decorations for restaurants such as Gaspar’s, a restaurant on 56th Street in Temple Terrace that connects to a deep-sea theme.
“I always wondered what this place was because I see it every day. I think it’s cool that they don’t need to buy anything to make a living,” said Corey Lyons, a sales representative who passes the shop on his daily commute.
The preservation art movement the couple partakes in is not just about reusing old items. They convert artifacts into entirely new concepts. “We don’t like to use the word recycling. We are conservationists,” Brown said.
