Peter Bellerby: The passion of living to create the world time and time again

Ph: Tom Bunning

In the era of Google Maps, GPS, and WhatsApp’s live location, anyone could think, and it wouldn’t sound too weird, that a world globe is something old fashioned. Something that has seen better times. After all: who needs them? There is a company in London that is one of the two in the entire world that still makes traditional and handcrafted globes. Peter Bellerby, owner and founder of Bellerby & Co. Globemakers, has answers to every question this blog made, based on his more than ten years of experience in the art of making globes. Be it between your fingers or hands, thanks to them it’s still possible to grab the world and make it spin.

Although it sounds hard to believe, there are thousands and thousands of people who think (against all evidence) that the Earth is flat. Maybe only one look to any of Bellerby’s globes would be enough to change their minds. For the 53-year-old English globemaker, the round shape is the truest way to represent the Earth, arguing that maps always tend to inevitably distort it. Located in Stoke Newington, a neighborhood in the north of London, Bellerby Globemakers was born in 2008 as an answer to a particular concern of its owner and founder: he wanted to give a globe to his father as a present for his 80^th birthday and he couldn’t find anything good enough.

Peter Bellerby. Ph: Ana Santl.

As a result, he set his mind to a personal challenge, to make the globe himself. He thought it was going to be easy and that it would be ready in a couple of months. However, it took him two years to finish it, with more than a hundred failed attempts, and it required a huge investment of approximately 250.000 pounds (which also implied the sale of his house and car). It is worth underscoring that we are talking about different size wooden globes that are totally handcrafted to the last detail. Eleven years have passed since that complicated task and, as they say, fortune favors the bold. Today, Bellerby Globemakers creates in average 600 globes per year, prices going from 1.300 to 80.000 pounds. The biggest one on sale: the Churchill, which has almost a meter and a half in diameter and two of height. The smallest, on the other hand, a desk globe with 22 centimeters in diameter.

Matias Dice (MD): How does it feel to be the owner of one of the last companies in the world that makes these globes in the traditional way?

 Peter Bellerby (PB): It’s wonderful to be doing a job I am passionate about and producing a quality product I am proud of. Also, I love that I can train and employ so many talented artists here in London in a creative career. Each globe we make is one of a kind and something our customers can pass down within their families as an heirloom. Traditional crafts are amazing like that, not throwaway items but rather high quality and handmade.

Ph: Paul Marc Mitchell

Many years have passed since Bellerby quit his job on TV, in a bowling place, and restoring cars and houses, to dedicate himself full time to the art of creating scale replicas of our planet. Nowadays, his team consists of woodworkers, painters, cartographers, metal workers, illustrators, engravers, and so on. Most of them, if not all, need a six-month training period before officially beginning to work there. “Each globe passes through at least five sets of hands in the making”, Bellerby said.

Though the business’ main goal is to sell products to individual customers that order their globes from all around the world, on occasion some of them has been used for Hollywood movies. For example, four were commissioned by Martin Scorsese and made for the movie ‘Hugo’, which would end up winning several Academy Awards back in 2012. At the same time, Bellerby is an ambassador to The Elephant Family Foundation, allocating a portion of every globe they sell towards trying to save the elephants. Every year they also work to create one-off works of art that are auctioned to raise further funds.

MD: What about having the world in your hands? Do you get used to it?

PB: I am always learning new things and continually being inspired. It’s also a constant reminder of how fragile the world is, how big the world is, and what a little space we occupy.

MD: And when it comes to the creation process. What aspect of it do you find more exciting?

PB: Working out new techniques, new designs and seeing them come to life for the first time. And also meeting so many interesting people who commission our globes, learning about their lives through the commissioning process as they design their globes and add personalization.

Ph: Paul Marc Mitchell

MD: Why do you think people continue to buy globes?

PB: For one, flat maps are distorted and globes are a true representation of Earth. Secondly, when your choice otherwise would be a plastic off-the-shelf/factory made globe that is likely to have many errors… it’s nice to own something one of a kind, handcrafted and hand painted. Something that is high quality and can be enjoyed throughout a lifetime. Our style of globes are not only a learning tool but also works of art, something beautiful to have in your home or office.

Also, in that way, the Bellerby Globemakers’ founder pointed out that nostalgia is another decisive aspect for their clients. “We often have people telling us happy memories of globes in the homes of grandparents growing up or being inspired by one at school; often customers tell us they have been searching for a quality one for many years and they are so happy to have found us, which is a great feeling”, he said.

Ph: Paul Marc Mitchell

So, if you’re wondering how does it feel to make the world spin between your hands, or to feel like the king of the world as Leo Di Caprio in Titanic, or simply to experiment the Earth’s weight on your shoulders like Atlas, the Greek mythological titan, you already know where to go. At Bellerby’s, no two globes are the same; and in the whole world, there are few (if that’s even so) like Bellerby Globemakers to do the job.

To read the original version in Spanish, click here.