La Bricoleuse

Here's part two of my Masks & Armor students' final projects! Some totally mindboggling stuff here.


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Last week, we had a special treat in my Masks & Armor class: we had the opportunity to visit with Dr. Eric Juengst, a colleague here at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a maker of actual metal plate-mail armor!

One of my students, Denise Dietrich, discovered Dr. Juengst's work through a mutual friend, who had shared with her this video:



I reached out to Dr. Juengst to see whether he'd be willing to meet with us, to talk a bit more in-depth about his methods and allow the students to handle some of his work, to compare the weight difference between his metal armor and the pieces we make for the stage from materials like thermoplastics. Lucky for us, he was more than willing to set up a visit to his workshop!

Here are some photos from our trip:


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Three more projects from my students, these being grouped together as "not-bigheads."

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My masks and armor class has presented their simple masks. These are defined as masks which typically don't require a life-cast of the performer's face to create, and which don't fully enclose the head or require special engineering (like a movable jaw or something). For these projects, students often choose mask designs inspired by traditions like masquerade, carnival, and ritual/celebration. I don't require them to scale up to full size from their maquette projects, but some students (often those with a particular interest in costume crafts) do choose to do so.

Take a look at their stuff!
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Here are the rest of my Masks and Armor class final presentations. Some amazing stuff in here, such a great group.

( deep sea divers, Klingons, and warrior women )

We're heading into finals in the academic end of things, and i have a couple of teaser photos to share before things really get cranking.

Judy Adamson's beginning draping class has a couple of super sweet half drapes out in the hallway that i just had to take a photo of. And, my masks and armor folks have had their final presentations pushed back to May 1st, but one student is completely done and her work is SO FAB (hi samurai helmet) that i can't keep it under wraps.

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My students presented their complex mask projects today, and i just LOVE them all! Check these out!

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My Masks & Armor students are really knocking it out of the park, in their first fullsized mask projects! They presented yesterday so i've got some photos to share and i'm super excited.

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Wow, things have gotten super busy--i haven't had time to finish any of the posts i have half-written on things like USITT seminars, book reviews, or fin de siecle buckram hat foundations. (Some of this can be chalked up to being part of the interview/review process for finding a new Assistant Costume Director, as our much-loved prior ACD is leaving Thursday, Texas-bound.)

I do have some great photos to share of armor projects: a banded leather breastplate/backplate configuration, a padded women's pourpoint with grande assiette sleeves, an "iron corset," sabatons, and some scale mail that defies description...

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My masks and armor class has completed their second round of mask projects...a while ago, actually, but i've been too busy to get the photos up til now.

Four people chose to do cast neoprene masks, which involved the scaling and sculpting of a positive from a research image or design rendering, casting that in plaster to create a negative mold, then casting the mask itself in neoprene, painting it/padding it, and rigging it for wear. This is a great process to use if you need a lot of a single style, but is usually too time-consuming for many theatrical applications. (By time-consuming i mean, the amount of time required to for the plaster to completely dry with the negative mold, then the time for the neoprene to fully cure before painting.) Three of these masks were based on traditional African carved wooden mask designs, and one was a graphical rendering of a cartoonish style of owl.

One student chose to do the foam creature construction method that was taught by Holly Cole of Ohio University as part of last year's USITT Costume Symposium, to create a cartoon-inspired little-girly dragon character head.

The sixth student used the Varaform creature construction method taught by David Russell (also of Ohio U) at the Symposium, to create an Anubis mask.

( check them out! )