2/13/21
From Left to Right: Raku Mask 1; Gift from Fire. Wood fired stoneware; Trash can fired mask mounted on barnboard; Ghost Mask. Raku fired crackle glaze
Today I was reading an essay in an issue of the Metropolitan Museum of Art magazine devoted to the museum in the time of Covid. The article on masks was primarily devoted to some incredible African masks in the museum’s collection, objects imbued with deep significance and many meanings, one of which of might have been protection, of the warding off of evil. The story triggered a memory of art class in my high school. Amazingly enough we were given thin sheets of copper (apparently at that time copper wasn’t as costly a commodity as now) and were taught to shape and hammer the copper into the shape of a mask. I, who at the time, was not that skilled at drawing or painting, for some reason excelled at the exercise. More importantly, as I look back, I was entranced at being able to turn this thin metal sheet into something mysterious, with its own shiny beauty.
Fast forward many years later: I had become a painter, and had begun studying clay with a wonderful teacher, mentor, and eventually close friend, Vera Lightstone. Vera had been making all kinds of stoneware--mainly glazed--masks for years. I started creating my own versions in her class. Eventually I made large raku masks, rough in surface, charred and with crackly white glazes. I made delicate glazed small white masks. A woodfiring gifted me with a tiny haunting mask, colored by ash and flames in the searing cone 12 heat. Somewhere in a warehouse are boxes of small masks gathering dust. And a shopping bag full of unglazed masks is nestled in a hallway closet filled with art supplies.
And now masks have taken on a different meaning. They are not objects to be looked at, held, loved or feared, but they are for all in the age of Covid protection. Objects that distance us from each other, but objects that allow us to engage at suitable distance with passersby and friends.
Now I wonder, without access to clay (which I haven’t had in years), am I to make paintings of masks? Or perhaps I can figure out a way to work at home with papier-mâché. Or self-hardening clay, covering it with some kind of paint or collage. Or perhaps a linocut mask.
Maybe this is a new project to propel me into a more regular studio practice. The Covid fallout for me has been the difficulty of focusing during days of Zoom calls, Zoom teaching, phone calls…never enough time to talk to the friends, family that I really feel the need to touch with my voice if not hugs and lift each of us out of this sad isolation.
Too bad I don’t have the gift of making a ventriloquist puppet!