Chthonic goddess of the greening earth. Wrinkled, like tree bark, painted, an exotic glade. Process, the recycling of Nature, life emerging from death. An organic art. The mask's fronds as if growing out of the forest floor in the Spring. Papier-mache, mulch: paper, or leaves. The face as landscape; the face carrying the landscape with it. Flower colours framing her face; the iridescence of insects, sheen of dragonfly. Feathery wings, plumed serpent, vestiges of living vines. A vision of a Nature spirit, Summer Solstice, a Midsummer Night's Dream. Shaman of the forest. Tutelary guide in the rainforest. Jungle of the imagination. Then the Surreality of the sky-blue mask on the greening gold fields of her face: I offer you a masked mask.
Or go to Picasa and see all the photos, and a larger slideshow:
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| Green Goddess Masque - Process |
Above, photos documenting the inception and evolving masque, which were posted at Rubies In Crystal as I did them, now collected in a slideshow. There may be more added depending on when and how photos from the Buddha Groove emerge from various cameras that were flashing that Halloween night.
Below, a slideshow documenting the stages of painting the masque:
Or go to Picasa and see all the photos, and a larger slideshow:
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| Green Goddess Masque - Paint Sequence |
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With thanks to my longtime friend, Christopher Reibling, painter, writer, violin player, and Bill Brouard, a digital artist who I know through Facebook, for images (Chris's over 20 years ago-a photograph of a papier-mache mask he had made of a green goddess with ribbons; Bill's recent) that helped to inspire the form of this masque. Also hundreds of paintings and statues of Green Tara... who surely formed the impetus for this piece. Along with a dream I had 2 or 3 decades ago of a chthonic earth goddess rising out of the forest floor, out of the plant material of which she is composed... at the time I called her the green garden goddess, but she's here, in this mask.
In June 2011, I danced in the woods wearing this masque, and created a video poem:
direct link: "Green Goddess" Masque (a dance in the woods)
and the work pays off - beautiful results! thanks for letting us see the process.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Sky. xo
ReplyDelete[from old ning site]
ReplyDeleteComment by Brenda Clews on April 18, 2010 at 9:46am
Such a beautiful and astute comment, John. Thank you. I began a 'landscape as subjective figure' series, 'perhaps the landscape isn't what we rest in, perhaps the landscape is a consequence of who we are.' After reading your comment, I realize this masque is part of that series' process.
Though I did wear it to a Halloween party last Fall! In the dark, it was a scary masque. In the light it was iridescent. I sat on it by mistake but it recovered. People loved the masque in the subway. And at the women's only ecstatic dance the next day. My breathing made the paste and paper damp and the form became somewhat malleable. Like wearing recycled compost, a risen Green Goddess illumined in the greens and blues of the world with the iridescent colours of birds and insects and flowers.
Comment by John F Walter on April 14, 2010 at 8:05pm
Above all, I totally grokked the irridescence. The tellurian link, even in the recycling, the sense of nature reformed as face, now emerging with terrestrial features, vision of the sky, evoked the duende of the mask in the mask for the entire series of slide sets of process, result and display that followed. The finished anti-faz, or mascara in Spanish, is very beautiful indeed and has an almost chromatic power over the viewer. Brenda's "Green Goddess masque calls us to play in the green lush forests of our own irridescent psyches.