Face Shell

Even now, after all these years of making masks, sometimes I am still daunted by the prospect of making that first mark on the pristine white surface of my Multimask tabla rasa (blank slate). What if i mess it up?

Performing artist Hilary Halba of the University of Otago Theatre Studies has this to say:

"...while one's aspirations are still in one's imagination, they are perfect and anything's possible, but the minute you actually make a start on doing anything is the minute error begins, or the minute disappointment happens or the minute that imperfection seeps in".

Dealing with the Con-troll lurking under the bridge:

A good way to deal with those feelings - the terror, anxiety, hopes, dreams - that is the crux of going on a soul-searching quest or just making something better than average, is to treat the Multimask in a way that is beyond conscious control. This "little old Chinese lady" was dampened then oven-baked before coming out all randomly wrinkled. Did you know that the Chinese word for mask 'mian hok' means "face shell". I like the above 'face shell' so much i cannot bear to do anything further to it! It's perfect as it is...

A Refined Escape

A woman once told me that dressing up [in mask & costume] was about creating a world safe as a child's bedroom should be - where she "cannot be reached". By dressing up she was saying: the imagination, the body, the world is not hostile. Did you know that Picasso thought along similar lines...that his paintings were a refined escape from a hostile world. Interesting thought!

"Ippinquill" - a new carnival arts character

To celebrate the November '07 launch of our new MASKWORX website http://www.maskworx.co.nz/ i have devised Ippinquill - a 'carnival arts' character - using layers of clever cutouts from about 15 Multimasks, a strong pair of scissors, a curved tip pair of scissors, a pencil and two bead buttons.

The point of this playful exercise is to transform the Multimask classic face shape into a carnivalesque (happily exaggerated) face scape with a new agenda. Our new carnival arts character is facing an identity crisis: Ippinquill no longer recalls where it comes from? Ippinquill doesn't appear to know where it is going? And...Ippinquill doesn't want (to know) anything?

To the visual storyteller, this presents a problemo dramatico: What sort of portrayal is it when the usual identity cues are missing? But perhaps more importantly...what sort of audience plays along with a central character who is unrecognisable? I am grappling with these ideas...