Although he spent his early childhood in Redwood City and San Bruno — drawing flowers, insects and people — John Read had bi-coastal influences on his artistic development. Both his parents and grandparents were mixed East/West coast couples, and his own family eventually relocated to Washington, D.C., where he dabbled in photography, sculpture and painting and later studied law. A longing for a the West Coast brought him back to Burlingame and to his grandparents. In time, he become a fulltime caregiver for his widowed grandfather. Following his grandfather's death, John cultivated his interests in ceramic sculpture and oil painting. He finds time for volunteer on environmental education and law projects.

Thoughts:

Any mask is like a crustacean's shell — pigmented and patterned to either intimidate or camoflauge. This mask struck me as an ideal medium for the symmetry and asymmetry of a Dungeness Crab. Using varnished acrylic and sharpie marker, I expressed multiple ideas, such as the interesting relationship of the different sizes of identical living things. Another idea is how the red spots on the largest crab, when aligned over the context of a human face, fiercely, fearfully, or perhaps with bewilderment, peer out like eyes, yet on the shells of the smaller crabs, those same spots, merely stare blindly skyward.