2002 Seacoast Home and Garden Show
Author Unknown

Recycled Reflections

Is it only a birdhouse? Or is it art? If you bought one, would you hang it in a tree or in your living room?

Nineteen years ago, Brown's Foster Home of West Gardiner, Maine, opened its doors to teenage boys with autism, severe behavioral problems and a variety of other disabilities. The focus of the program developed and facilitated by Curt Brown, co-founder of the home, and Mark Pelletier is on the abilities of their clients, not the disabilities. Developing better motor skills was not the initial goal of Pelletier's "birdhouse project." It was only one of the results.

Sometime back in 1996, Mark Pelletier was looking for a project for the school program. Pelletier had taken the students on hikes into the woods, fostering the students. interest in nature and wildlife. Building a birdhouse in the Arts & Crafts/Carpentry program seemed an ideal fit, so Pelletier and his students gathered scrap lumber, a saw, a hammer and some nails and built what Pelletier describes as a "wooden box." In need of something for a roof, Pelletier searched for suitable material. In a desk drawer, he found a bag of pinecones left over from a Christmas project. By pulling the pedals off the pinecones and cutting square one end, each pedal became a single shingle. Pedal shingle by pedal shingle, the wooden box acquired a roof.

The wooden box with the pinecone shingles inspired Pelletier and his students to build more and more. In the third year of the project they built 304 one of a kind birdhouses and sold nearly all of them. The next year they built and sold about 400. Pelletier is now the birdhouse project manager for Recycled Reflections, the enterprise that grew from the wooden box. As project manager, Pelletier has guided the residents of Brown's Foster Home though the construction and sale of nearly a thousand unique birdhouses. Each is carefully created from scrap lumber, castoffs and "gifts of nature," branches and tree fungus for perches and the immense supply of shingling material that is used on every birdhouse. Curt Brown came up with the name Recycled Reflections for the burgeoning business. Brown provides financial support for the program which he and Pelletier hope will some day become self-sustaining. He is also the expert antique and recycled material provider, finding many of the materials that give the unique qualities to each birdhouse. But it is the residents of Brown's Foster Home who are the force behind the project. In their labors, cutting. drilling, sanding, and shingling, Pelletier's students have transcended basic carpentry. The birdhouses are their creative outlets: their canvases. Make no mistake; these are not everyday birdhouses. They are not perfectly square trim little backyard bird bungalows. These are old things turned new again: old lumber, old nails, with an old water faucet perhaps, or a bent wrench artistically positioned as a perch. Each piece is the unique expression of its builders. So are the roofs, every one of which is carefully laid with row upon row of pinecone pedal shingles.

"Our birdhouses are wholesaled to several fine gift shops across the state of Maine," says Pelletier. "Some are sold at craft shows and we even sell them on our Web site, www.recycledbirdhouse.com."

"As we continue the project, we are committed to not losing sight of what makes it special; we are facilitators for a partnership of artists with disabilities." "Art save lives," Pelletier continues. "I read that on a t-shirt and I think there's some truth in it. Look closely and you will see it all. These are not just birdhouses: they are works of art, they tell a story and they enrich our lives."

Recycled Reflections will be at the Seacoast Flower, Home & Garden Show. Come; see for yourself if it's a birdhouse, or if it's art. Decide where you would hang your very own Recycled Reflection.