Cayman Brac couple Rebecca and Robert Banks have been making music with bamboo wind chimes they hand-carve at home.
The garden ornaments are not only decorative with calming, pleasant sounds, but some of them have functional uses such as doubling as planters, tealights and birdhouses.
“Robert and I have an enormous garden and were keen on finding bamboo wind chimes a few years ago, but couldn’t really find any unique ones to satisfy our needs,” says Rebecca.
Robert builds custom homes, and had the tools necessary for carving, so the pair decided to make their own, with each wind chime being unique.
“When our friends saw them, they always commented that they’d love to have something like that, so we decided to make some for sale when we had free time,” says Rebecca. “It’s really just something that brings us joy.”
The wind chimes are carved from washed-up bamboo collected on the Brac’s shoreline.
“At first we were making just plain wind chimes, but then a friend suggested we make them more decorative,” says Rebecca. “It’s a lot of fun to make them, especially when friends come over and we do some crafting.”
The couple took a number of the wind chimes to the 2023 Christmas market in Camana Bay, where they were well received. Now, they sell them at Pure Art on South Sound, and the Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park, on Grand Cayman.
This article originally appeared in the Autumn/Winter 2024 issue of InsideOut magazine.
