The Mask Gallery

The film DANCES SACRED AND PROFANE was a documentary made about photographer Charles Gatewood.  I met Charles when I was working at QSM, when he came in one day and asked Karen if he could ask any of her employees if they wanted some part-time work doing his bulk mail catalog processing. We dropped 7000 catalogs every three months at QSM, so doing the Gatewood mailing list of a few thousand was easy.  I did that for him for years, and then built him his first website.

In the film, the longest segment features Charles and Fakir Musafar, and their trip to Devil's Tower in Wyoming to stage a Sun Dance.  They have Jim Ward of Guantlet along too, and he and Fakir enact the ritual while Charles photographs it.  I had a t-shirt with the film name and the logo of Fakir in mid-hang from a later release of the film by Fakir, in the early 2000s.  

I got to know Fakir when I lived in San Francisco, and came to have a complex brand on one of my legs, as burnt by him in a workshop at QSM in 2001.  I had gotten to know Fakir because I and friends attended more than one of the piercing days sessions attached to his teaching workshops, as a way to get professional but low-cost body piercings in the late 90s.  I also knew him socially from attending the same kinky community parties over the years.

The outer layer of this mask crafted from the film t-shirt, and features the logo of Fakir, hanging while pierced through the chest, on the right-side face of the mask.

My first job after graduate school was with now-legendary leather manufacturer Stormy Leather.  I worked there from January 1996 until December 2002.  It was an amazing place to learn about the diversity of human sexuality, bdsm manufacturing, and was where I witnessed the birth of internet retail. While most people will remember Stormy's zipper logo and the tagline "Forbid Yourself Nothing," when I started there, that wasn't the branding yet. There were two t-shirts for the company, and one featured what was actually a page from the wholesale catalog: a series of nine illustrations of leather dildo harnesses.  On the back of the shirt it read, "Strap It On And Ride Til Dawn."  This was considered the ladies design.

A classic from the clothing stash, selected due to 'use it or lose it' praxis.  The Strap It On concept is fantastic for face masks in a pandemic.

The Lacedaemonian Ambassadors (1896) is one of my most favorite illustrations by Aubrey Beardsley.  I have a vintage 1970s belt buckle featuring the illustration. Coming from a series of images commissioned by Leonard Smithers, Beardsley took inspiration from the traditional Lysistrata, and the mask features two of the three Spartan emissaries and their enormous stage-prop phalluses.

One half the mask is pieced quilting strips, the other half is an ink jet heat transfer of the Beardsley illustration, making use of a late 20th century ink jet transfer paper onto a piece of white cotton t-shirt.  I find that face masks made from mixed materials really benefit from top-stitching.

The virtual exhibition THE BABEL MASKS opened on October 26, 2020, and features one of my masks!

An acquaintance posted about the call for submissions in July, and after reading the prospectus, I had a funky feeling that I was supposed to make a mask and submit it to the show.  I used all materials that I had on-hand, I am caring for elderly parents and I isolate so that I can be with them more safely.  The mask base is a stretch denim, with a cotton lining, and then all the decoration is built up on the denim.  The base mask was machine sewn, using a 1940s Singer Featherweight that I inherited from my German-Jewish paternal grandmother.  All the embellishment was hand-sewn.

Here are some behind-the-scenes pictures from the mask crafting.

I haven't taken part in an art show, let alone a juried one, in about twenty years, and I'm very pleased to have "Blood On Their Faces" accepted for display.

https://www.babelmasks.com/

The functional cloth masks I sew are made from cotton fabric and t-shirts cut to provide the ties.  I have incorporated a variety of mask design principles into the masks that I sew.  Masks have two layers.  The outer layer is often made from two different fabrics, for a left-right contrasting effect.  The inside and outside are always different so that wearers can tell them apart.

I have been wearing these same masks myself, about 7-12 masks per week, since June 2020.  I frequently walk to get where I need to go and will change masks after getting very sweaty or lots of active breathing, if/when the mask becomes damp through.  Worn masks get collected in a lingerie bag and are easily thrown into the washing machine with or without other laundry.  The lingerie bag can go right into the dryer as is, and the masks come out reasonably untangled.

For most comfortable and smooth wear, it helps to iron the masks with a warm iron on the inside facing.  I iron masks after washing and then place them near my front door in a spot where I only keep masks that are clean and ready to wear.

Mask Construction

These masks are sewn on a vintage 1940's Singer Featherweight.  Revolutionary in its day, the Featherweight was notable for being able to sew a straight stitch both forwards and in reverse.  That's the only stitch it does.  This machine formerly belonged to my paternal grandmother.

Obscuration/Obfuscation

In the day and age of facial recognition, all sorts of strategies have been developed to distort or thwart artificial intelligence identification methods.  This mask is about hiding in plain sight.  In this combination, an Occupy bandana is worn with a face mask crafted from synthetic suede that matches the wearer's Caucasian skin tone. The bandana covers the hair and ears completely, coming down just over the eyebrows.  The face mask starts at the bridge of the nose, goes below the chin and back almost to the ears.

Alternately, this mask could be considered a form of white privilege, erasing the face to be a smooth, undistorted, Caucasian color.

Being synthetic suede, and lined with cotton, the mask is genuinely washable and reusable.

The Ripley Masks - As Above, So Below

Thrice I've been lucky enough to visit London, and twice those visits have included the Ripley Scrolls. Each one varying slightly due to their handmade process, there are only 22 of these alchemical documents in the world.  Working with photographs I took of the Ripley Scrolls I was able to view, I printed images onto ink jet transfer paper that was found when cleaning out my elderly mom's art studio: the dates on the packaging and instructions are 1998-99.  

The outer face of the masks is a cotton flour sack used for toweling.  The transfer paper ironed well onto the toweling, with the vintage paper producing a vintage iron-on appearance.  

As Above - excepted from the part of the Ripley Scroll where a dragon sits below a triple sun/moon, the transfer for this mask was peeled when fully cooled, which produces a glossy finish to the surface.  To the hand, the mask almost feels like a thin leather or a soft vinyl tablecloth.

So Below - this Ripley Scroll detail features a toad, the symbol of Calcination and the imperfect Prima Materia.  This transfer was peeled while still warm, producing a matte finish to the image surface.  This mask pattern is the Contour 3D Face Mask from Japanese Sewing Books.