Mask Making is Mask Making

Today I started and finished working on the leather for my first leather Steampunk mask. This one is a doozey! What I find amusing is the fact that no matter what the medium, mask making is mask making. A lot of the techniques that I learned and picked up from Arick Syzmecki and Andy Lavin translate directly into traditional leather mask-making. It's so similiar to so many things that I've seen those two do. The other thing that I find amazing is how much leather works like copper. That gave me a huge leg-up.

Here's the leather portion of the mask done. It took about 12 hours to complete this part.


There will be metalwork all over the mask. The two metals I'm using (always 2 tones) are copper and fine silver. And as usual, my masks make a societal statement. In this mask, the statement is in the choice of metal primarily, but is carried through the entire piece. Fine silver naturally maintains its shine, never gaining the natural patina put on by weather and human hands. Meanwhile, copper patinas very quickly. The metalwork will be similar to previous masks, having a cyborg eye and tubing on the forehead. What is the statement? If the copper is man, then the silver is what man has created. Much like the mask as a whole, the silver's appearance will outlast the appearance of the copper. In the big picture, the metallic cyborg components will outlive the organic leather human components. It is a statement of time, thus it will be titled The Contemporary Shaman Mask of the Eternal.



See you space cowboy....