Crampus mask unpainted

Crampus mask unpainted paper mache

Making the masks is easy for me and good fun too.

I am not under contract and am not trying to please anyone but myself with these masks.

I work well without direction!

So far there is no pervading theme or precise direction so anything that happens in masking characterization is perfectly OK.

As long as there are cast-off newspapers and a bit of flour to boil up some paste, I am in business.

Who knows where it will go?

Who knows where it all will go??

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Me working

Me working on a frog mask. Tanya photo

Hello.

It seems an odd time to be doing something as childish as making masks of paper mache--but the world seems so bizarre to me right now that it seems the very best thing I can do.

There are presently almost two thousand wild fires burning in California--some sort of record they say-- gasoline prices are increasing by ten cents a gallon or so daily-- who knows for sure what is happening in Iraq or Afghanistan since the powers that be play so loose with the truth...

Making paper mache masks seems not such a bad occupation after all to me.

Good peaceful work to you too!

Tom

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Fish Mask

Tanya photo

Fish are an important part of the circle of life in this part of the world.

Very unfortunately, the local salmon have reached a point where they could become extinct if human habits do not change.

Other fish share the same bleak future--and unfortunately so do humans since it is more than a poetic conceit to state that all life forms are indeed connected.

By constructing this fish mask and using it ceremonially, I hope to raise my own and other's consciousness to a point where we can truly realize that making money and acting foolishly are not the only habits worth having.

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Wise Woman mask

Tanya photo

I call this mask "The Wise Woman". (Our part-time cat maggie is resting near the mask.)

I have been very fortunate in meeting a number of older women who have greatly helped me in my development and understanding.

This MASK character represents a number of the wise women I have had the honor of meeting in my life.

No longer in the body but always living in my thoughts are Sister Helen Mary of Bardsey Island, Wales, Elizabeth Studer of the Ceramica Il Poggio in Italy and Kikka Gladhorn of Gut Bellers, Germany .

Another of my great old friends is Beatrice Bennewitz of Bad Feilnbach, Germany.

I owe a huge debt of gratitude to these wonderful older woman.

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Pilgrim mask

Tanya Photo

I call this mask "The Pilgrim".

Here The Pilgrim is walking a trail to some pilgrimage goal.

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Tanya Photo

Me as Frog

Hi.

I have a LOT of good memories of Mill Creek, Mineral and Lassen Park but for now I would like to change the subject for a little while.

I am going to teach a short course soon--a VERY short course--in making paper mache masks-- and I want to show a few of these creations on this, my blog page.

The class will be held at the Turtle Bay Exploration Park in Redding, California on September 21 and September 28, 2008. Then the "students" wearing their mask creations will be in a short theatrical performance at the new Redding Art Hop.

Thanks.

Thomas

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Chapel, Tower, Bridge

Some things do not change much.
Tanya on My Bridge at Mill Creek Resort

I have heard that every man should build three things before he dies: a chapel, a tower and a bridge.

I am happy to report that I have accomplished those three things.

"My" chapel: a one-seat meditation chapel half-way up the hillside garden at my parents little A-frame house between Ventura and Ojai, California. (You had to walk through the duck yard to get there and don't forget to close the gate.)

I decorated it with a goldfish pond--a tile mural featuring the New Mexico ZIA symbol made by my mother-- and a memorial to "DUKE" carved into a small granite stone with a candlestick attached. (Duke was the departed brother of a friend of mine.) The roof was an old oak tree.

I believe the entire scene-- parents, chapel, garden, oak tree and ducks are all gone now. (What do you expect in Southern California?)


"My" tower: the top tower at the Lassen Ski lift.

I helped build it and put a ceremonial medal under its concrete block foundation. It was made of steel and I really did think it would outlast me.

Nope.

There were a few dry years without sufficient snow and the whole ski lift--towers, machinery and all-- was removed and sold somewhere back east where it could make somebody some money.


"My" bridge: is no Golden Gate--but it IS a bridge and though I did not build it from scratch, I DID restore it and make it usable for a few more years when it was falling down.

And it is still there!

It is a footbridge across a brook behind the rental cabins at Mill Creek Resort and when you get there think of me when you walk (or dance) across.

My chapel. My tower. My bridge.

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