Terry Moore says he’s always been creative and can see the potential to create art in something that’s about to be discarded. The 69-year-old has made countless pieces over the years, many of which are exhibited on the front lawn of his southeast Acadia home. “I think I went to the store once; I bought eight packs of screws that cost me like 10 bucks,” he said. “And this is why I hoard; so if I pull a screw out of something, it’s because I need the screw, and then I pull that thing apart, and I’m going, ‘Now, what am I going to do with you?’” Moore says one day, some kids walked by his home and commented on the artwork, saying it was “rad,” and then Moore told his daughter. “She called it ‘Recycled Art Design,’ and the name stuck,” he said. “Now, it’s the name of my Facebook page.” Moore lives on Acadia Drive and says it’s always been an issue how busy it is, but he’s seen how his art can actually slow traffic. “I started to do this, and now people slow down and take a picture, open up and say, ‘Hey, how are you?’” he said. “I even had a bus driver pull over and take a selfie with my yard in the background.” Moore’s newest piece is a small-scale truck he started in May. “It’s a ‘Rollscanhardly,’” he joked. “It rolls down one hill and can hardly get up the next.” The original request came from his wife, who asked him to build a western wagon to display at the start of July for Stampede. “I said, ‘Yeah, I’ll make you a western wagon.’ I had the wheels; I found this and that. The bottom of it is an old wheelbarrow that I made for my granddaughter. I had the drum that I found in a ditch.” Daniel Krejcik-Rose, an Acadia resident, purchased a piece of art from Moore in the spring to display in his yard. He’s impressed with the small recycled truck. “He’s got such great attention to detail,” said Krejcik-Rose. “He really does bring out the potential in things and the way he looks at things, like he’ll tell me things about stuff he hasn’t started on yet, but he’ll start talking about the vision for it and how it’s going to work and it’s just awesome.” Moore says as an artist, a project is never truly completed, and when he looks at the small truck, he can see where it needs a few additions. “I’ve got to bring it back into the shop for a bit to finish it,” he said. “Finish the back axle, make my rear taillights and a licence plate, and I believe I’m finished.” Moore says he’s a self-professed art hoarder and enjoys making things but also talking to buyers about how an idea for a piece came to him in the first place. He feels that story is valuable to people who own his works. “Then they go home not only with a piece of art, but they go with the story, so they tell somebody else, and it goes on and on and on,” he said. His small-scale truck will continue to be exhibited on his front lawn, but he says at some point he’ll have to let it go to a new home. “I can’t keep it because I got to build something new; I guess I’ll have to put it up to the highest bidder, I don’t know,” he said. “You can’t make new art unless you can get rid of some of the older pieces, right? So it gives me space to make new ones.” You can learn more about Moore and his art here.
