How a Florida couple turns thousands of lobster traps into art
ISLAMORADA, Florida – The quiet of island life called one Florida couple, and they responded.
Husband and wife duo Nadine and Glenn Lahti retired to the Florida Keys in the late 1990s, but they soon found a new way — an artistic one — to pass the time on the islands. They decided to recycle thousands of lobster traps, and repurpose them into frames for their tropical artwork.
In 2003, the Lobster Trap Art Gallery in Islamorada, Florida, was born. Since then, the artist couple has reused 10,000 lobster traps, turning discarded utilitarian pieces into frames to house their paintings of turtles, manatees and lighthouses, alongside underwater photographs of Caribbean life.
Fished right in their backyard, the traps are gathered each year during harvesting season. They infuse them with their "Keys-y" style, repairing the traps but keeping the original barnacles, ropes, and tags clinging onto the repurposed materials. Everything that would have been on a working trap under the ocean is turned into a unique display. This includes frames that house photographs of Key Largo's underwater statue, "Christ of the Abyss," which is a submerged bronze figure that's popular with divers.
"People get a memory of the Keys," Nadine Lahti said of the lobster trap frames, describing them as a memory that illuminates people's time in the sun and the ingenuity of the makers on the island.
This report originally appeared on South Florida's "Art Loft."
Support Canvas
Sustain our coverage of culture, arts and literature.
Harry Styles won album of the year at the Grammy Awards, taking home the top honor on a night that…
In our news wrap Sunday, Navy divers are working to recover debris from the suspected Chinese surveillance balloon that was…
Dr. Donna Adams-Pickett is a practicing OB-GYN in Georgia, a state that's known as a maternal care desert. She's run…
Several of the nominees at this year's Grammy Awards rose to fame and popularity on music streaming platforms like Spotify…
The sounds of the world brought to New York for one night, and from there, to a club, concert hall…
PARIS (AP) -- Spanish-born fashion designer Paco Rabanne has died at age 88. The company that owns the Rabanne brand…
Although still in their 20s, actors Ben Platt and Noah Galvin are already performing veterans. Both have played dozens of…
Acclaimed science fiction author Octavia Butler offered insight into the place that space and its explorers occupy in our collective…
The year's nominees for induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, which also include Iron Maiden and the…
Brady says he's out of the game for real this time.
When folklorists went to the American South last century to record and preserve traditional string band music, they probably didn't…
A Santa Fe district attorney has filed involuntary manslaughter charges against actor Alec Baldwin in the fatal shooting of a…
For the first time in Super Bowl history, a pair of siblings will play each other on the NFL's grandest…
Ira "Bob" Born, a candy company executive known as the "Father of Peeps" for mechanizing the process to make the…
Williams credits included the films "American Graffiti" and "The Conversation." But she was by far best known for playing the…