The girl

It's been a while since I've done any masks. Here is one I finished up today for the visual thinking project I was assigned for a supplemental art course for my grad studies track. The assignment was to listen to a song and then use what you heard, felt, sensed (of the music) to inform the design and fabrication of a piece of artwork. There were very few limitations on the finished piece other than that it couldn't exceed a certain size. I went with the approach of putting my design idea on a mask form because I just always do better with a three dimensional surface.

The song I used to inform my design was by City and Colour and it's called The Girl. You can listen to it if you want to by clicking on the embedded link or you can just take my word for it and know that the song is very much of a Plain White Tee's "Hey there, Delilah" vibe (well, the slower ballad-y version at least).

The inspiration for my design also originated from someone I know as the song is also one they have said they like and have listened to enough recently. I guess it's a little bit of a visual depiction of how they have presented themselves and how I understand them to be.  The subject is female and right now she is going through a very challenging time in her life that I know can/will provide her with significant growth so long as she doesn't fight it. Still, she is not really in a good place and she hasn't been in quite a while. The difference between now and every other time though? She is finally willing to be authentically herself rather than a facade of what she wishes she would have been to begin with.

This mask is definitely a departure from the theme of my original collective even though I think it could sort of fit into it if I wanted to. I don't know though. I would have wanted to put a lot more time and energy into it and used different materials and spend a lot more time doing something very cleanly executed. My original idea was to do a Jonathan Adler inspired pattern and even though I did draw from something I saw of his, it is hardly worthy to be called even inspired by him because of how messy it is.

Anyway, this is my latest endeavor in my personal work. It's been so long since I've done anything on that note so it felt good to be able to do it.