Mask
Mask, self portrait, 2015, unfired clay and wood ash, a blind first print
A beautiful, magical image done by Daniel Fox, Lumina Studio
A lump of dried clay with the imprint of the artist’s hand stuck in my head for years after I saw it in a Singapore exhibit. It was part of a larger work, a metal structure, if I recall right, with clay gripping it labeled as a “first print.” That was news to me. The idea of a first print made the strongest impact and I saw it as a kind of self-portrait.
In the middle of one night it came to me to print my face and explore the meaning of self-portraiture in a different way - the result is Mask.
By not seeing to sculpt, and sculpting by feel, Mask is not about my appearance. It’s a “blind” print, literally. I covered my face with the clay and found the shapes of my features without sight. Tricky breathing, but by lifting the edges side to side it was just fine. It didn’t trigger my mild claustrophobia, plus I had a clay facial out of it.
By not firing Mask, it spoke about transience: that the clay will one day return to back to the earth, as I believe my body will do (that or ashes).
To me, Mask is a lot about the medium, loving what clay can do and be and with reverence to the ages of weathering that pulverized stone into slippery, useful clay.
A detail of the ash on leatherhard clay
I think about what self-portraiture means besides a direct replication of appearance. I don’t believe there’s a definitive answer. To each their own. To me, my self-portrait is about “me” and is freedom.
Self-portraits are for myself. They let me veer out of the observational, figurative lane and take the weight off of making for others to understand. In fact when I start worrying about that, the self-portrait loses something.
Some are good and some are not. What's important is following a thought and finding out where it goes. I learn from each.
I liked that my atelier instructor Mike Magrath said Mask was a haiku. I would like all my sculptures to be haikus. It isn’t something I always manage to do, but something I always strive for; to pull back from over-speaking to a simple, subtle language.
The red clay was a first thought on a base - a rejected thought - but the artifact of the trial created an important color element in the piece.
The mask just off my face resting in a bed of ashes.
Eerie looking.