Worth the Wait

Worth Spencer, 60, is from the coastal community of Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina (USA). He has spent the majority of his life building sailboats. Though he still enjoys this occupation, he now has his own line of custom artwork in Bocas del Toro, Panama.

Friday, August 10, art lovers gathered at The Wine Bar in Bocas Town for an exhibit by Worth Spencer. Tapa dishes were prepared for sampling and a dinner menu was available for patrons as well. The eclectic exhibit featured pieces made from all natural materials Worth finds while combing local beaches. These include, but are not limited to, coconuts, mango seeds, shells, drift wood, palm leaves, and various vines and roots. The paint too, is recycled. It is left over from jobs around town. The variety is so obscure and the creatures created are so strange, one has to do a triple take. Each of them is so unique and one of a kind, impossible to duplicate.

Relatable to many items or even people you may know, these pieces were left fragile and forgotten, tossed about or broken, just waiting for someone or something to bring them to life again. They were waiting for Worth. Aside from their oddity, this is part of what makes them so special. These things, these bits of debris were once intended to have an entirely different purpose, and Worth gives them another. When asked how he decided what something would turn into he replied, “It tells me. I see it.” Then he gestured to a panel of wood in a table close by and continued, “You see the eyes in that? I see one thing about in an object, and I take it from there.” The concept seems so simple, but the outcome is amazingly intricate.