LAW 179: We all wear masks, don't we?

 Hmmm, appropriate don't you think in this time of pandemic. 

Don and i were on a zoom meeting with a former student of his, and some how masks came up. Not just wearing a mask for protection now, but art masks.

  

   

Above, The Shaman Mask, c. 2010, total length 23", 11" W 10" D. Materials include, papier mache, pig gut, hemp rope , black thread.

 One thing led to another, and after spending some time in a futile search i realized i had never documented the masks that i had created primarily as teaching tools.

So here for your viewing, and perhaps purchasing pleasure are some of the masks that i made while i was teaching three dimensional design.

Masks play a major part in our lives right now, as protection against the deadly virus that is running unchecked all over the world. As an aside, please if you aren't wearing a mask in public currently, please, please reconsider your position on this.

   

     

Above: The Creature from the Deep, 14.5 x 9 x 9.5". Materials include papier mache, deconstructed wired gold fabric ribbon, glass seed beads and black thread.

But beyond protection, masks have always played a major part of human life. Think about all the myriad ways masks are utilized in human life. In theatre. Masquerades. Halloween celebrations. Ritual shamanic healing. I'm pretty sure that with some thought we could all expand on this list.

Suffice to say, we use masks to both reveal and obscure. Handy little things they are. 

Not to mention masks have been used throughout human history and in all culturals for some or all of these purposes.

My interest in masks stems from a brilliant exhibit mounted by the St. Louis Art Museum, "Masks: The Faces of Culture", in 1999.

  

 

Above, Googly Eye Mask, total length, 30" x 6.5 x 10.5". Materials include papier mache, de-composed and stained cotton canvas, black thread and craft google eyes.

I realized something as i was composing this blog post. For some reason when i made these pieces i never titled them. This is very unlike me, as i have always felt that the title is an important part of the process. So it may seem that these have very silly or mundane names.

The masks that i make are constructed of papier mache, made of recycled brown paper, white(PVA) glue and assorted disposable everyday objects.

They are all made in a helmet style; designed to be worn without ties, they will fit most people's head.

  

  

Above Machine Nature Mask, 15 x 13 x 7". Materials include papier mache, Catalpa Seed Pods, contact lens cases.

They are comprised of a minumum of twelve layers of paper with a variety of pigment patinas and have a natural wax rub to protect the surface. You can clean them will a damp soft cloth.

Most were made between 2008- 2013.

You can send me a private message through my blog or gailelwell@yahoo.com. All of these masks are available at very reasonable prices. Prices available on request.

I am also willing to work on commission. They are a lot fun to make, however time consuming. Do bear in mind that i live on a boat. Winter is not the best time to have your hands playing with wet, cold paper. 

Take care, say safe

and wear the mask

more later

gail

LAW: 178, Which one, design decisions

 Good morning, it is a beautiful day on the Chesapeake. After we got confirmation of the Biden/Harris victory, the world took a deep breath and started to wake up from our collective nightmare of the past four years.

This photo was taken after election day, but before it was called. Do you think that the fog and mist are indicative of the confusion in the country?

From the Dock, 11.05.2020

Perhaps unsprisingly, the weather cooperated. We cast off our lines and left dock yesterday afternoon and motored out to our favorite local anchorage, which is really just a little bitty way down the river. But hey, we're anchored out and enjoying the bliss of solitude.

Okay, so it is not always as easy as that. The river has silted in quite a bit in the last couple of months, it took us four times before we were happy with our location. Which does mean that i got to drop and raise the anchor four times. Gotta love the exercise. We probably had to anchor about 150' further out than normal.

But aside from that i really want to focus on what goes into design decisions from a photographic point of view.

The color this morning at dawn was incredible. I grabbed my phone and took a couple of shots, but realized immediately that i wasn't satisfied with the color. So out came my trusty Canon Rebel T3 SLR digital. I got some stunning photos. As always i threw away more images than i kept. Three cheers for digital cameras.

I really like both of these images, but for different reasons.

Middle River Sunrise #1, 11.08.20

Middle River Sunrise #2, 11.08.202

#1, is the first image i took, i was focusing mostly on the reflection of the trees on the water. I think #2, is the better photograph, even though i lost the tree reflections. Why, well, better depth of field, and compositionally #2, is far more interesting to me, because the mast reflection isn't smack dab in the middle of the image. What do you think?

Planning another beautiful day on the river.

More later,

gail

LAW 177: Great Minds, or Synchronicity

 Talk about collage weirdness; minutes after i post images of "Is This Not My Pre-Approved Life?" yesterday one of my contacts from a variety of collage boards commented on my piece. 

That isn't the weird part, the weird part was that she was just finishing a piece in which she had used two of the same images i had. 

The story unfolds something like this.

Untitled, by Diana Curbelo

Diana posted with my permission the two pieces side by side on a FB board that she created. She was interested, as explained below in exploring the emotional ground behind our mutual choices. Below you will find some of the commentary.

....help me elaborate on this synchronization of collagists’s emotional choices on images (?)

PLEASE NOTE THE POSITIONS OF THE PIECES HAVE BEEN REVERSED, DIANE IS L, MINE, R

Two minutes after Gail posted her collage (on the left) in another group, (I had just glued down mine, on the right), I saw it and gasped and wrote in her comments:

“Gail, I have 3 of the images you have used, two of which I actually used today for my Sunday Diary Collage, which I will post shortly!! So uncanny!!! It has to be the emotions we are feeling. What do you think????”

I was flabbergasted!! Lol

I was curious, excited to see what she had done, what images we had used, and how the completed work differed.

Diana went on to say....

I’ve had this happen before, but never at the exact same time. I think how we choose our images is so directly related to how we are feeling, and this weekend, well, those women are looking a bit worried....

I pointed out that there also structural similarities. We had both used an amputated human figure, and the compositional structure was very similar.

Like i said, great minds....

Stay tuned

and if you haven't voted yet, make sure that you do.

more later gail

LAW 176: Construction of a collage

 I was talking with Don today about the construction of this piece. How it came together, how i used the elements to create the composition.

From one of my ongoing collage journals, Eye to Eye,  6.5 x 10" spiral bound hardcover with black cardstock. 

IS THIS NOT MY BEAUTIFUL LIFE

I enjoy working ideas out in my collage journals. I try to not get too invested in them as finished projects, rather more like a handy way to develop new vocubulary.

Not to mention, working in as limited space as i do, it is far simpler to be able to close a notebook, than finding safe, dry storage for larger individual pieces.

Unlike my normal practice of coming to the collage table without preconceptions of what i was going to create, in this case i knew what i wanted to make. Triggered by the outside of a very official looking envelope, which was nothing more than yet another come on for life insurance. I saw that pre-approved bar code, and instantly decided i had to use it.

I just might have either been listening to or had the lyrics of the Talking Heads, "Once in a Lifetime" going through my head. Although i didn't know exactly what image i was going to use, i did know that i wanted a sort of as above, as below sort of thing going on.

This collage turned into a technical challenge when i had to make the decision to use one side of a page instead of the other. 

As an aside, at the very beginning of my collage "career" i decided to not copy nor print images. This was for two basic reasons, i did not want to let the images get too precious; and i felt that copying and printing multiples of images lessened what i saw as a primary thrust of collage, the spontaneity of random juxtaposition in composition.

Of course this means that i am often put into the position of sacrificing one image to use the other. Such a dilemma.

Another technical challenge here: how to use an element that is only half of a recognizable image, in particular the image of the woman's legs. Blessed serendipity came into play when i realized that i could indeed eat my cake and have it too. That the image that i decided to sacrifice was intact enough that i could use it as well.

Structurally i felt that the two background pieces of numbers and computer imagery weren't strong enough, or didn't provide enought contrast to convey my intention. Amazingly the reverse of the off cut from between her legs turned out to fit perfectly in that problematic negative space.

Tying the whole piece together is the photo of a group of young women from circa 1930's Germany. So, two different media sources using the metaphor of swimming in advertising to sell us something other than what we have.

Keep on making

more later,

gail