Upcycle Hawaii Blog

What do you do when the hardest thing you’ve ever done gets, somehow, impossibly harder?  I, for one, would love a concrete answer to this question. 

After working tirelessly and endlessly for the past 5 years, the year 2020 was off to a great start.  Our sales were starting out gangbusters, we just moved into a new studio, and we even had international shows planned... 

            Living with today’s technology, it’s almost hard to fathom that for most of the history of mankind, we built everything ourselves.  Tools were forged by fire and empires were laid one carved stone at a time.  Most people were skilled in multiple trade professions and a community relied on one another to provide the services and skills necessary for daily life.                 Now, in the age of 3-D printers, smart machines, and online shopping we rarely know how the goods we consume are created or what they are made with.  We have become complacent with the idea...

                  As I observe the world around me, it is hard to deny that we find ourselves emerged in a throw-away culture and living in a single-use society.  Plastic water bottles abound in our daily lives, packaged foods dominate our diets and trends come and go in the blink of an eye.  As we all know, this is a huge contributing factor to our global waste and pollution problem; moreover, I believe there are additional far-reaching consequences to our current way of consumerism.                   One of my largest worries is that we have lost the value of everyday items in...

As you may have read in “Our Story”, admittedly, my passion (and knack) for creativity is something that has always been a part of me.  I have been making, tinkering and experimenting since I was a child; and, a lot of that was done with old materials and items.  Going into my 30’s, I realized that I wanted to make a commitment to working exclusively with reclaimed and repurposed materials; but, why did I decide to “upcycle” at all? My obsession with upcycling began when I successfully figured out how to crochet aluminum can pop-tabs some 10+ years ago now. ...

  Being an artist is a strange thing.  No one ever tells you that you are an artist, you don’t need training to become an artist, and going to art school doesn’t necessarily make you an artist.  Yet, I was waiting for the day that some golden envelope would arrive at my door to officially announce to the world that another artist had been bestowed the esteemed title.