Andrew Hoyt "reclaims and repurposes" old glass into colorful pieces of art. Each bottle tells a story, he said, and is a piece of history. The Prohibition era, 1920 to 1933, was really when glass bottles turned into works of art, he said, as glass manufacturers started putting craftsmanship and unique designs into their products.
Andrew Hoyt fills his recycled bottles with water and shards of colored beach glass or other glass to produce vibrant colors.
"The idea is to reclaim, repurpose and recycle," Andrew Hoyt said. "That's where R&R Glassworks got its name, 'reclaimed' and 'repurpose.'"
Wrangell residents may be familiar with R&R Glassworks, a relatively new business that has made itself known at community markets and online. Hoyt's art features antique glass bottles filled with water and shards of colored beach glass or clear automotive glass. They show vibrant colors and reflections when put against a light or on a windowsill.
"We reclaim the glass from local landfills," Hoyt said. "I have a couple here on the island and then there's a few outlying areas that I also have sites that we clean up: Old cannery sites and stuff like that, salteries. Then we pick up broken glass off the beach, Petroglyph Beach is a great source for that."
Each bottle Hoyt uses tells a story, he said, and is a piece of history. The most recent bottles he has used come from the early 1950s, but most are older. He has one bottle that came from the late '20s or early '30s, made by the Hazel-Atlas Glass Co., a nationwide manufacturer with West Coast plants.
The Prohibition era, 1920 to 1933, was really when glass bottles turned into works of art, he said, when glass manufacturers really started putting craftsmanship and unique designs into their products.
"The thing I like the most about them is the designs, it's like art deco at that point," Hoyt said. "It's really kind of a reflection of how life was in the '20s and '30s, post-World War I, pre-World War II. ... If you took this one, for instance, and walked into an art deco building in New York City, you would see these types of designs on it. It's really neat because you get a snapshot of the culture and what was going on in society at that time."
Hoyt, 56, has been turning old pieces of glass into artwork for almost 20 years. He always liked old things, he said, like antiques and old memorabilia. It really started when he learned that there were areas around Wrangell where he could find antique bottles just lying around, and taking his family out to look for them.
It turned into a side business relatively recently. Hoyt used to have an eBay shop seven or eight years ago, but it became too hectic for his schedule, so he set it aside. He returned to business this year, however, online at Etsy and at Wrangell community markets.
He has made almost 190 bottles already this year, ranging from $10 to $35 each.
R&R Glassworks is not only a way to make some money to supplement his fixed income, but to share his passion with others and to do his part to help his community.
"The idea really is to clean up these junk sites and to get them out of there, and hopefully prevent other glass and stuff from going into landfills," Hoyt said. "If we can do that through what we're doing, and I consider each piece a unique piece of art, if we can continue to do that we're kind of helping out the whole environment and everything else, and offering a product that's absolutely gorgeous."
R&R Glassworks has been giving back to the community through fundraising, too. At April's community market, Hoyt offered a "Caps 4 Causes" promotion, where a percentage of every bottle sold with a metal cap, rather than a cloth wrapping, went to the St. Frances Animal Shelter. On his Etsy store, he started doing "Fundraise Sundays" every third Sunday of the month, where proceeds go to different causes.
Hoyt has also used R&R Glassworks to raise money for the Wrangell Mariners' Memorial, and the Sig and Helen Decker Memorial Scholarship Fund.
"A big part of what we do is reclamation for the environment, to clean things up and to share things," Hoyt said. "Part of that is giving back. ... It's nice that we get to do all this work and help the environment, but it's even a better thing that we can help other people."
R&R Glassworks can be reached at (907) 305-0987, or hoyt@gci.net. They can also be found on Etsy at https://www.etsy.com/shop/RandRGlassworks, or on Facebook at "R&R Glassworks."
"It's a lot of work, but I've been doing it long enough now that I can find a bottle, look at the bottom, and know how old that bottle is and thus how old the beach is," Hoyt said. "It's just a lot of fun to do that, to discover things. And then I get to share it, and it's even better."
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