They say that the process of creating a piece of art, is actually to portray yourself. If this is so, then creating a piece of mask, could as well be a deeper process of portraying parts of yourself, bringing to light different aspects of your psyche.
This project that I introduce for the first time here, is a product of these troubled and quarantined times. It’s in troubled times that we are called to take a look at ourselves. It’s in a quarantine like the current one, that a lot of people have reported digging up things from their drawers. In this way, I found a plastic mask cast that was left in my house by an old and beloved girlfriend. It was there for many years, never used before, and now claiming my attention, as if speaking to say ‘’now is my time to manifested, to find a face.’’
The process I follow is this of experimentation. I deliberately avoid reading or watching ‘’how to’’ tutorials, as well as creating drafts of the final product. I just want to allow the process and the materials to reveal the face of what my hands work towards.
Working this way might reveal something of me, but also helps me find out what the mask stands for, which are its ''faces''.
A mask can be a way to attract a spirit, or as we would currently call, an idea. It can be looking into the mirror, and more than that, the mirror looking back at us.
But it can also be other things, like a journey into examining our tendency to hide our true self in order to gain acceptance. The invention of a relationship with ourselves and the community.
A process from in to out, from down to top, that allows us to show our true identity and not foster the anonymity that forces people to wear masks.
A process of two worlds coming together, sharing spirit in a deep level without the mind interfering, a meeting in sincerity, bonding in love and compassion without the overshadow of ego.
Invoking a spirit to go on a journey with, in a sacred place. Giving permission to the spirit to be the guide and teacher, and in the process abandoning the ordinary self and becoming a ritual, where there’s no pretending, no fake, where what is said is real. A ritual to renew the self and the world.
It can be an attempt of covering a wound, hopefully for healing it, connecting with the root of the self. Covering the wound can might as well be an attempt to escape from its challenge, to pretend it’s not there. But it can also be the manifestating craving for connection and exploring disconnection.
Wearing a mask is becoming a gatekeeper, living on the edge of two worlds, on the threshold. Becoming a mediator, a witness an ec-static being.
A way to building and exploring relationships, to rebuild the relationship with one self and the world, by inviting the spirit that the mask invokes, to begin to move through us.
It’s like the imaginary friends of children, they hide ‘’in the stomach’’ but they come out sometimes, when they’re needed to guide, to protect and to accompany on the journey of exploration.
In this first part, the mask have just dried out of the cast. The next stage is where they’re about to get colored and decorated. A part of me would prefer that they remain in this stage, in which their existence is on a wider level that is full of potential and is feeding the imagination. But helping them to attain a more solid identity, is a challenge of an exploration that I feel a calling from. So, the masks will be back to face you!
