The Masks: Repairs and Additions

These masks belong to a friend of mine. During her move across this vast country, they met with the misfortune of being smashed to bits. Poor things .. they are made of paper clay and quite fragile. The big smash weakened them in places where they didn't actually fly apart, and my friend was devastated at the extent of the damage. They are hand made by some artist which I'm not familiar with, but they do have markings and numbers on the inside, if anyone knows who the original artist is. I would like to know. Well, my first instinct was to write them off as trash, but out of respect for the artwork, I agreed to try to save them. The black one had the most damage. Shards were collected from both sides of the face, but under the chin was mostly missing, so had to be rebuilt. I made wool cords, with multiple tails and glued them to cover holes, rebuild the jaw area and generally cover the cracks that showed after the glue up of the paper clay. The owner has seen the pictures and loves them. She's already making plans for where to put them up in her new place. I'm not sure where these were originally purchased, but if I have the story correct, it would have been at an arts and crafts show here in Nova Scotia say about 25 years ago. My friend has been all over Canada since then, and they had survived all the moves except this last one. 

The bone colored mask had much less damage and only one small hole. This was easily covered with wool ropes. 


The spring cleaning is still going on schedule. I'm almost up to the studio, which I'm leaving to last. If any of it is going to run over time, it's going to be the studio. So, I realize, now I'm procrastinating. Off I go with my cleaning supplies .......