I have a long-standing fascination with masks.
One of my top ten spots to revisit would be the Museum of Masks in Zacatecas, Mexico. Not only does it have an awesome mask collection, it is also a reconfigured abbey, set carefully w/n ruins that are 100's of years old. (I've blogged about it before.)
One of my favorite school art projects ever was a mask I made in 7th grade art. It was a paper mache African mask featuring a hairpiece I constructed from broom bristles. (It's still in the attic in my hometown.)
One of my favorite holidays, second only to April Fool's, is Halloween. Not only have I had some swell costumes in general, I have made some masks that really wowed people.
Masks allow us to pretend with ease. They give us a simple way to role play. They offer a shelter in which to hide our true selves and let others make impressions. An artist came through Cowley 10-15 years ago and did some work with children and masks. I was amazed (back then, having no context of children) to see how they grooved on masks. Now, I would safely say my kids could punt about any toy except their costumes and masks.
Of course, I would be remiss if I did not wax on about the metaphor of masks. The flesh encasing us does little to express who we really are. Facial works cannot really convey deep seated sorrow or absolute bliss. These are not the stuff of skin.
Masks can be our faces, but they can also be our ethnicity, our demographics, our titles. Masks can be stripped from us, sometimes, like moments of astonishment and surprise. When some shocking tragedy slaps us all around, like the Oklahoma City bombing (recently remembered), then we drop our masks, if even for an instant.
What would it be like to live w/o masks? to be true to ourselves and transparently ourselves, always?
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