Meet Chris Vasconcelos

We recently connected with Chris Vasconcelos and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Chris, appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?

First off, I’m an August Leo. So there’s that. Ha.

I think a lot of my persistence, work ethic, and resilience comes from being a father. Making sure that my children are safe, happy, and healthy became the only priority once my children were born.

Having a full time career can pay the bills. Still, I always wanted to earn a living by myself, relying only on myself, and not a “boss”. I can remember pulling wild flowers and weeds out of the ground to try and sell them, on the sidewalk. I may have been 6 years old.

The rope art to me was never “art”. It was a way to keep trash off the beach, keep me occupied, and maybe pay for food or gas for my car. It became the driving force to want more…because why not. Creating and designing the framed rope art is unique, and it is difficult, and it is not something you see everyday. I’ve also upcycled about 40k pounds of plastic fishing rope to-date by selling it as art.

I wanted to show my children that their divorced Dad can do more than sit around feeling sorry for himself. Encouraging my children to be the best they can be, to work hard, and do the right thing even when nobody is watching.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

I am a full time associate professor of mechanical engineering technology. I have two children, divorced, (amicable divorce), own my own home, and have slowly become a New England Rope Artist.

I started taking my two young children to the beach, for walks, to look for sea shells, beach glass, and old buoys. We would often find little scraps of colorful commercial fishing net and fishing rope. We live near a busy commercial fishing port and my home is located inside the harbor. I started to collect this rope/net, clean it in my kitchen sink, and sun dry it on the fence. I had no idea why.

A year later I was building rope coasters, fishing net bracelets, buoy lamps, floating bottle openers, doormats, dog leashes, and framed rope art. I saw that my rope art was extremely unique and kept focusing on that. I have spent 8 years perfecting my craft. I use coarse robust, and discarded commercial fishing and lobster trap rope to make something unique, and to help keep the materials out of the ocean, a landfill, or melted down to make some other plastic product. I can also make it quickly. I sell my framed rope waves to over 30 gift shops across 18 states in the country coast to coast. I have been on Channel 5 Boston, Chronicle back roads and main streets. I have been published 8 times and have been in dozens of magazines. My work has made the front cover of 4 different magazine issues. I was awarded a US copyright for my rope waves.

I want to continue creating rope art, wholesale and retail, and custom commissions. I love working with the fishing and lobster trap rope. I love that it is unique. Most of all I cannot believe how many people have loved my work. The support I have received over the years has been amazing. I love the challenge of keeping people interested. I love the challenge to sell more each year. I love the challenge of reaching more customers. I love it all.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

Being unique. Persistence. Maintaining integrity.

My advice would be to stay different, do it for the creativity, not the money. If you are having fun creating then the success and hopefully some extra money will follow.

All the wisdom you’ve shared today is sincerely appreciated. Before we go, can you tell us about the main challenge you are currently facing?

Finding time to create rope art has been the biggest challenge.

I resolve it by splitting my rope projects into multiple, easy, tasks.

I treat my framed rope art like manufacturing any product. I want to make as many of them as I can in the shortest amount of time, without sacrificing quality. The wholesale rope art allows me to get my work out to more customers. The retail or commission rope pieces allow me to keep the work interesting. Creating rope art that I feel like making is my favorite. Those are the pieces that come out the best. Having more free time would allow me to make art “for me”.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.harborsideropeworks.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/harborside_ropeworks/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/harborsideropeworks/