Meet the man who built a 15-foot-tall sea glass Christmas tree

If a coastal Christmas is your vibe, then John Viveiros of Tiverton, Rhode Island is your guy. An arborist and tree climber by trade and a welder/craftsman by choice and chance, Viveiros constructs Christmas trees out of recycled material and some of the beach’s most prized treasures: sea glass. 

However, these aren’t just little table top trees or pretty centerpieces. His creation on display at the South Coast Harvest Festival in Westport, Massachusetts clocks in at 15-feet tall and is made out of tens of thousands of pieces of sea glass.

“The crowd really goes crazy, because it’s something they don’t expect. That height and size with such a small piece of material,” Viveiros tells Popular Science. 

At his small business Yard Arts, Viveiros primarily works with recycled metals and materials that have been discarded or found along the beach. Sea glass is often found in areas where there’s a lot of history of boat traffic. “Luckily, where I find all mine is an area where the traffic’s been going on since the 16 and 1700s,” laughs Viveiros. 

He and his wife Snooky began sea glass hunting about 20 years ago. He found a blue marble tolling in with the tide. 

“That was my first piece that got me kind of hooked into it,” says Viveiros. “I made a pendant with it.”

A far cry from a pendant, Viveiros started building his sea glass Christmas tree with a heavy flywheel as a base. He took a 15-foot-long metal pole and attached it to the base and added a circular piece for the angel at the top.

“I used a metal steering wheel from a classic 1970s car. One of those old foam drip steering wheels,” says Viveiros. “So the angel stood on top of that.”

As a tree climber with 40 years of experience up in the air, Viveiros “knows his knots.” This was crucial for stranding together the sea glass. He used a double loop knot and then proceeded to tighten the glass on itself using some fishing line. The glass is spaced about four to five inches apart. 

“I give them space, so that way, when it’s displayed, each piece is not on top of the other, and it has its own unique look,” says Viveiros. “I strand the pieces eight feet long in my basement in the winter.”

[ Related: A dedicated son brings Fenway Park to his dad’s backyard. ]

In addition to the Christmas trees, Viveiros also makes sea glass curtains to use in his backyard and plays around with the wide variety of colors in his sea glass collection. That hands-on experimentation, being open to making mistakes and trying new things, is what he credits with his success and suggests his fellow hobbyists also stick to when trying new things.

Beneath the sea glass and discarded materials used to bring this tree to life is a deeper message of life’s chances. 

“This tree is created by junk. Sometimes, you have to tumble, and go through the storms of life to be polished up for life’s challenges,” he says. “The glass has gone through the elements of mother nature, and now it’s a beautiful piece of polished material.”

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