During his stay in Antigua, Nick Maley who started painting landscapes had the opportunity to sell his paintings to tourists by exhibiting them in the lobby of a renowned hotel.
At the same time, he develops good relationships with the cruise ship staff who recommend him to their customers. It was at this time that he became "that Yoda guy", a paraphrase used by the inhabitants of Antigua to whom tourists asked for directions to find him.
The couple hope to maintain this relationship once they move to Sint Maarten where the museum is gradually taking shape. “We started by renting a small room to test the atmosphere and the environment,” recalls Nick Maley. Then they rented the current 200m2 premises on Front Street. “At the beginning we only occupied half of it, which was converted into a shop and gallery, to be sure we could pay the rent,” he adds.
Little by little, Nick and Gloria then develop the second part. He begins by exhibiting his own objects and then calls on his friends for donations. “I have 300 friends who have made the most famous films of the last thirty years so I sometimes asked them for favors,” he says. For example, he collects original molds of creatures and remakes them himself as for Tauntaun, the camel horse from Star Wars. Or he reassembles the remaining pieces as for the Martian baby from Men in Black.
Today visitors access the museum through the shop. Original script pages, figurines, paintings by Nick Maley are offered for sale. From there we enter the heart of the museum, the half-light of which recalls those of cinemas. It is cut into small pieces on which are exposed molds of faces of international actors, creatures from famous films as well as the reconstruction of the first Yoda, produced by Nick Maley himself.
"It is not a museum about Star Wars but about films, with a focus on creatures with special effects because it is in this area that my friends and I have experience" advance Nick Maley. If most museums on cinema focus on the characters, he preferred to highlight "the people who created the characters".
(Source: soualigapost.com)
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