Recycle ZooBrian Read

A well-known local sculptor, Read has worked in a lot of media and explores a range of imagery in his work. As a young boy he worked with his father at the York Animal Forest Park (now York’s Animal Kingdom), located in York Beach, Maine, and enjoyed the animals and their antics. He credits this experience to his later focus on animals as a favorite subject and theme for his sculpture. His choice of medium, however, came much later in his life, the result of a chance stop at a salvage transfer station. Without necessarily considering how he might ultimately change their purpose in service to his aesthetic, he was drawn to some metal cookie sheets, which he later transformed into a carousel horse.

Energized and excited by the possibilities inherent in recycled metals, he has continued to create a wide variety of innovative – and technically skillful – works. Not just a possum, for example, but a mother possum with babies on her back and tail; not just an astrological figure of a Capricorn, but one with over 130 individual pieces making up the face alone.  There are mermaids and flowers and fish and animals of all kinds. Many are painted bright colors, but some others retain their natural (often rusted) finishes.

While Read will sell discrete works at county fairs and the like, he displays many of his metal works together in the side yard of his home, in his Recycle Zoo. Here viewers can see his innovative works combining different metals, including old tools and car parts, in whimsical ways; all display an impressive craftsmanship and most inspire a smile.

~Jo Farb Hernández, 2016

Jo Farb Hernández

36 Calderwood Road
Washington, ME, 04574 us
Latitude/Longitude: 44.246086 / -69.3864337

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