‘Light Catcher’ wind chimes hot at festival
Gilroy – Rudy Gutierrez stopped and stared. He was caught, mesmerized by the shimmering wind chimes in front of him.
“Initially I thought it was some type of electrical impulse,” Gutierrez said. “That’s what caught my eye.”
But as he walked closer and touched the chime he realized it was natural light reflecting off the metal. It was a trick of the eye.
Theresa Gerszewski, who operated the “Light Catcher” booth, said she hears that all the time. Is it plugged in? Does the light come form inside the chime? Is it really natural?
Yes, she says to the customers, it is completely natural.
“People find it mesmerizing,” Gerszewski said of the chimes that flair open to create a 3-D like effect. “People think there’s light inside, but it’s the way I cut the metal.”
The Light Catchers are wind chimes she tried to use as an advertising vehicle for companies about four years ago in Los Angeles. However, companies just weren’t buying it, the idea was too ahead of them, she said.
So instead she turned it into art. And it sells well wherever she goes, Gerszewski said. And the Garlic Festival was no different.
“I don’t tell anyone how many of these I sell,” she said when asked how many of the copper and nickel chimes were sold over the weekend. “I will say this, we did well.”
Saying that she “did well” could be quite an understatement, since there was a sea of people surrounding the booth at all times. Even those who didn’t become entranced by the shiny chimes noticed what was happening.
One man who was pushing his way through the crowd said, “They’re going to make a lot of cash off those things this weekend.”
Just moments later a woman walked by and commented to the man she was with, “We’re in the wrong business.”
Pat Frinchero, a Gilroy native, said after she noticed the pieces she had to buy one, they were just too unique to pass up. It helped that she likes wind chimes.
“I love this, this is so neat,” Frinchero said as she pawed the piece she just bought. With a smile across her face she said, “I haven’t seen anything like it.”
But Mar Gay wasn’t going to be happy with just one. Gay bought four.
“It’s just so cool,” the Los Gatos resident said. “It’s different.”
Gay said he knew he was going to put one in his garden and one on the porch.
“When I’m sitting in a chair and the sun is hitting off (the Light Catcher) it’ll be nice,” he said.
Gerszewski said that it doesn’t matter what time it is, the chimes will glisten no matter if the sun or moonlight shining down.
“That’s why we’re getting one,” Rudy Gutierrez said. “Because it’s just so unique.”
