Antique Jester

This was one of the first masks I made, and though the overall design, compared to some of my recent work, is quite simple, I actually like the simplicity of it.

For this piece, I was inspired by seeing some children's toy, wooden blocks with letters and stars hand painted on them, that I had seen in an antique shop. The paint on these blocks had peeled and cracked, and in places the aged wood was showing through. I was deeply moved thinking of the many hands, and many hours of play and time that had thus aged the blocks.

This mask is paper mache as well, with an elaborate tassel tie on the top. The handle is covered in a strip of antique velvet wound around a wooden dowel, and I frayed the edges of the velvet to suggest age.

The face of this mask was also aged in a crackle finish, and I used milk paint to color it. I tried to replicate the crude, folk-art, simple hand painted technique I had seen on the blocks.

To preserve the crackle finish and the milk paint, I varnished the mask. In retrospect, I would have varnished it in a satin finish, as opposed to the high gloss it has now.