Projects: Complex masks

[labricoleuse]

I've mentioned in previous posts that this semester's graduate crafts course is on masks and armor. As we roll up into Fall Break, they're finishing up the section on masks, which culminates in a project i call "Complex Masks." The mask they chose for this project had to have some engineering issue involved in its construction. For example, one student chose to make a dragon whose eyes light up, another made a leather commedia mask using traditional Italian leather maskmaking techniques (for which she made all the traditional tools as well, like a hammer made from a bull's horn), another made a Medusa mask that had actual recoiling snakes, etc etc etc.

Two of the students gave me permission to photograph and share images of their projects here.




This head-mounted giraffe mask was made by 3rd year MFA candidate Emily Mason. She wanted to explore the idea of converting a human actor into a giraffe silhouette within the bright, happy aesthetic of a children's theatre production. She had to reconcile the top-heaviness of the height of this piece. The mask is mounted atop a headdress-style structure made from double buckram and urethane foam. She decided to make the transition from wearer to character by taking inspiration from turbans and head-wraps, twisting up into the giraffe's neck-shape.




2nd year MFA candidate Jacki Blakeney-Armin decided to reproduce the character of "Duke Sinisiri" from the 1992 Julie Taymor film, Fool's Fire. This fellow is mounted on a standard aluminum backpack frame (of the sort you use for hiking trips). PVC pipe forms the shoulder and neck structures, and his face is fabric mache. His hair is actual acrylic wig hair attached to a buckram "skull" and saturated with Sculpt-or-Coat. He raises the height of his wearer by around 2'! That dark red yoke is painted buckram, through which the operator can see where s/he's going.

Here's another view of him:



Pretty cool, eh?

Comments

[mlle-rouge.livejournal.com]

I especially like the giraffe, but both masks are brilliant! You must be quite proud of your students!