- Title: Ghanaian artist melts glass waste into wonders
- Date: 11th April 2022
- Summary: ODUMASE KROBO, GHANA (RECENT) (REUTERS) GLASSBLOWER MICHAEL TETTEH REMOVING MOLTEN GLASS BALL FROM HAND-MADE FURNACE VARIOUS OF TETTEH SHAPING MOLTEN GLASS BALL WITH STACK OF WET NEWSPAPER TETTEH SHAPING GLASS BALL WHILE APPRENTICE GLASSBLOWER, JANET OFFEI, HOLDS PROTECTIVE WOOD PANELS TETTEH PUTTING A STACK OF NEWSPAPERS ON TABLE VARIOUS OF TETTEH BLOWING INTO METAL TUBE
- Embargoed: 25th April 2022 10:58
- Keywords: art business crafts emerging markets environment glass glass waste glassblowing human interest recycling
- Location: ODUMASE KROBO, ACCRA, GHANA
- City: ODUMASE KROBO, ACCRA, GHANA
- Country: Ghana
- Topics: Africa,Art,Arts/Culture/Entertainment
- Reuters ID: LVA001906001042022RP1
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: Michael Tetteh, Ghana's only professional glassblower, clenched his teeth as he gripped a red-hot ball of molten glass, his burned and blistered hands bare against the steaming stack of the wet newspaper he used to protect them.
The 44-year-old toiled in the heat of scrap-metal kilns burning at nearly 1,500 Celsius (2,700 Fahrenheit), pregnant with melted windowpanes, TV screens, and soda bottles he would soon transform into elaborate vases swirling with psychedelic colour.
Some become red vases with streaks of black, other green pitchers, and some clear, everyday bottles.
"Glass, that I learned through bead making, it became my passion, it's like my heart. So, all the time I want to blow glass. Glass is a wonderful work. You see how we're working with glass; it expands. It's like life, you, see? It's like life. It expands like life also expands. It's like a journey: you go from one [place] after another. So, I love glass. And glass is beautiful," he said.
Tetteh's strict use of recycled materials, which he collects from scrap yards and landfills in the capital Accra, is part of a stated mission to reduce Ghana's glass waste and what he considers wasteful imports.
He envisions a Ghana free of foreign glass, having channelled its glass bead-making tradition into a modern, multi-faceted industry.
Ghana imports around $300 million in glass and ceramic products each year, according to the Observatory for Economic Complexity. More than 80% of that comes from China, the world's top glass exporter.
While some private companies recycle their glass, Tetteh says majority of Ghana's glass waste ends up either in landfills or scattered throughout the nation's streets, posing a safety hazard.
"We don't have a collection process, and we don't want broken glass to be flowing around like that or dumped into a landfill. And if we use recycled [materials], we can get money. If we want to recycle, recycling is cheap. Sometimes I buy the material from Accra, but it's not too expensive for me to buy. So, I'm able to use it, and after I use it, I'm able to pay my staff," Tetteh said.
Hailing from the town of Odumase-Krobo, one of the epicentres of Ghana's traditional glass bead culture, Tetteh discovered glassblowing in 2012 after spending two months in France and the Netherlands learning the craft, first with other Ghanaian bead-makers and then on his own.
He was alone in his desire to continue upon returning home and set a goal to establish a proper hot shop in Odumase-Krobo.
Undeterred by lack of finance, he built furnaces from scrap-metal and clay using online tutorials. He fine-tuned his abilities watching YouTube videos of famous glass artists like America's Dale Chihuly.
He has since trained and hired several young assistants from Odumase-Krobo, who he hopes will one day run their own workshops.
Janice Offei, 28-years old and one of eight women who Tetteh has taught, said that having the hot shop in town has been a game-changer for some of Odumase-Krobo's young people. It's provided both a work opportunity and a creative outlet for people who had neither.
"We are hoping more support will come to establish our business so we can employ more youths. In our community, there is no - the youths don't have work to do. They are smoking, they are blah blah blah. So if we can establish this job, they will get more work to do and they will not just sit down in their houses," she said.
The next step, Offei said, is to move the hot shop into a larger space, so more people can work at once. After that, they hope to buy a truck to ease the transport of raw materials from Accra to Odumase-Krobo.
The team's work can be found in boutique shops in Ghana and Ivory Coast and has appeared in European and American art galleries.
"My heart is to train young Ghanaians, both men, and women, so they can also learn this job as their professional work, and we can grow Ghana. We will not go to any country like China to buy the material we want to use in Ghana. I want to make Ghana beautiful," Tetteh said.
(Cooper Inveen, Christophe Van Der Perre) - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
- Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2022. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
- Usage Terms/Restrictions: None