Earthquake in Haiti damages our metal art business.

We continue to work, in spite of the damaging earthquake.

Our Haitian metal art business is located in Port au Prince, Haiti, which experienced a devastating earthquake on January 12. Our own home was completely destroyed. The building and work area, where our metal art is created, was 50% destroyed. Most of our Haitian metal artists and workers lost members of their families and their homes. Six days after the earthquake, we cleared an area and called our people back to work. We have been working at a somewhat normal pace and have been giving them coffee and a roll the morning and a nice sized full hot meal at noon every day. Gas, food and water were difficult to find, but that has eased up somewhat. The shipping port and airport were closed to everything except emergency supplies for over a month, but commercial cargo flights are now becoming available.

There has been no public electricity, but we have a small generator that we can run for short periods, as we find gas. our internet access has been off and on, but we are still able to keep up with our orders.

We thank you for your support during this difficult time. We are doing our best to keep Haitians employed and fed in our small way. Please consider your order as an opportunity to help meet the needs of a segment of the Haitian population at their time of need.

Below are photos that we have taken our experience with the Haitian earthquake.

The back area of the this section fell. This had been a lovely covered, open air space,
that was a pleasure to work in. Nice breezes all the time.

Below- An area of about 20' x 30" fell. It was supported by a 25' retaining wall with gave way.

One side of our work area. The 20 ft. high rock retaining wall gave way.

Fallen work area. Each day we continue to clear up the rubble caused by the January 12 Haitian earthquake. We have employed men to clean up and men to rebuild. After having been in Haiti for over 25 years, we intend to rebuild a better and larger work space.

This was a storage room that was completely destroyed.

We are making plans for repair and enlargement of our work facilities.

Flattening a steel drum - Haitian metal art.

Flattening a drum after the drum has been cut from top to bottom.
This creates an approximate 3' x 6" work space to draw our patterns.

One of our metal cutting artists continues to work beside the fallen rocks. Every day we are cleaning up more and more of the area to bring it back to the comfortable work-place that it used to be before the Haitian earthquake.

Haitian metal artists cutting steel drum wall decor.

A finished Haitian metal art bird design, displayed our metal artist, Elius St. Louis. ( We call him "Smiley".