Susie's Tree Spirit Masks on Display at Wussow's for the Month of March

This coming Thursday, March 6, Susie will be having an opening reception at Wussow's, 324 No. Central Avenue, for her show titled "We Wear the Mask." Susie began making masks back in the days when she did pottery. Though we no longer have a kiln, the mask theme has evolved and her work is quite remarkable. Here are a few examples, plus a bit of. backstory on the show.

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1. What prompted you to create your series of Tree Spirit masks?

 

Susie: I have lived in the country most of my life.  I have been making various kinds of masks for many years. The Tree Spirits came about more recently as an expression of my enjoyment of nature and a way to use various things I find outside in our woods and my garden such as moss, pinecones, seed pods, gourd pieces, and more.

2. You have made a variety of masks over the years. When did you start and What do you enjoy most about making masks?
 

Susie: Making masks as an artistic expression particularly resonates with me. I first began making ceramic masks almost 20 years ago. Around that time a widowed woman I knew died unexpectedly leaving her five children orphaned. I had been mentoring the youngest, a 6 year old girl, and I was shocked and heartbroken.

 

Faces can both hide or express many emotions. I began to include teardrops in one eye on my masks to express the universal sadness in life but I also include a small star in the opposite eye as an indication of hope.

 

I find enjoyment in the whole process, but giving them a name at the end is particularly fun.

 

3. Your masks are truly original. Where do you get your ideas from?

 

Susie: I don't necessarily start out with a specific idea. I begin making a face and it develops a life of its own as I go along. Sometimes I look at books of African or South American masks for ideas. Some masks may express my horror at world events, or personal angst. Others express joy that the earth and sunshine offer.

 

Wussow's is located next to Zenith Bookstore on Central Avenue, across the street from The West Theatre.

We Wear the Mask

A poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar 1872-1906,

whose parents had been enslaved, has always been

a very compelling source of inspiration to me.

 

We wear the mask that grins and lies,

It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—

This debt we pay to human guile;

With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,

And mouth with myriad subtleties.

 

Why should the world be over-wise,

In counting all our tears and sighs?

Nay, let them only see us, while

We wear the mask.

 

We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries

To thee from tortured souls arise.

We sing, but oh the clay is vile

Beneath our feet, and long the mile;

But let the world dream otherwise,

We wear the mask

What do Crytsal Bridge, Bill Murray, Matt Oman and The Mask Police have in common?

We're nearing the end of August and thus far it's been the most unusual year of my life. Many years have been marked unanticipated events that either happened (60's assassinations, 9/11) or didn't happen (Y2K), no year has been as life-changing in terms of its effect on behavior and the economic impact, nor the variety (surge in violence in the cities and racial friction).

In short, the year is two-thirds complete and I wish I could say that the worst is behind us but with an election ahead and no end to the violence in sight, I have a foreboding about what's
to come.

Against this backdrop, here are a few links that can serve as miniature diversions for whatever comes our way in the week ahead.

1) My satirical poem The Mask Police was published this past week in No Crime In Rhymin'.

2) Bill Murray has made an industry of his deadpan demeanor. Someone that that in addition to playing roles in films, he might be a good candidate to be inserted into famous paintings from history. It's an imaginative stroll through art history not unlike Woody Allen's Zelig. Here's the link.
https://mymodernmet.com/bill-murray-art-throughout-history/

3) While visiting the garage gallery of Matt Oman a few weeks back I learned about the Arkansas art museum Crystal Bridges in the vicinity of Branson. There are many great exhibits there, including an Ansel Adams exhibit for photography buffs, but Deborah Sverbers After The Last Supper, produced with 20,736 spools of thread, is utterly mind-blowing. Follow this link to learn more:
https://crystalbridges.org/exhibitions/after-the-last-supper/

4) The images on this page are Matt Oman's. We met at an art show in 2012 and have stayed in touch since. This is how I began my review of his gallery in 2018:

Unconventional means someone who doesn't follow conventions. Matt Oman's garage is not a garage at all. It's an art gallery. I've known people who can't use their garages because they're so full of clutter. I have not known any who turned their garage into a gallery. (I do know a few who have converted their garage into an art studio though.) 
You can read more about Matt Oman here.

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Onward and upward. 

Local Arts Seen: Henry Roberts' Venice Carnival at the Zeitgeist

Ah, Venice! There are so many distinctive cities in the world, but none like Venice. It's a city of islands and canals, and history. Indiana Jones and James Bond have both been there (Bond several times, I believe) and many a film has been shot there. But the images we most associate with Venice are these... the canals with their gondolas, and those amazing costumes from the Venice Carnival.

Monday evening was the opening reception for a photography exhibition at the Zeitgeist Cafe. Henry Roberts shared a selection of images from his own trip to Venice, and I make the strongest recommendation that you take a lunch there (the food is fab) to see the images he shot, and printed large. (EdNote: Zeitgeist has a wonderful brunch menu on weekends. Check it out.)

This Venice Carnival show was also a learning experience for me. I have seen the masks from Venice Carnival all my life. But I didn't know much about them other than they produced quite striking images. I even began collecting pictures of masks on one of my Pinterest boards. Having had a long time interest in masks I've even written about it here (and here.) When I have more time I may try to share a little information about the various names and styles of masks worn in the Carnival.

The Venice Carnival has a long history, stretching back to 1162 when people began to dance in San Marco Square. It is similar to Mardi Gras in that it precedes Lent, which begins on Ash Wednesday on the Christian calendar. In 1979 the Italian government re-established the traditional Carnival history with the aim of developing the city's tourist trade. Success! Over 3 million visitors a year visit the Venice Carnival.

After being introduced to the Mr. Roberts we talked briefly about how he ended up being there last year. What follows are some related questions and insights he shared.

EN: How did you come to take an interest in photography?
Henry Roberts: Many years ago I wrote a Sunday nature column for the Duluth News Tribune which often were illustrated with my photos.

EN: What is it that so captivates you about Venice?
HR: Venice, Italy: I saw a magazine article with pictures of the costumes and wanted to do it myself. The brilliant colors attracted my attention.

The Venice Carnival celebration is more than a month long ending on Lent. I went on a photo safari with eight other people and spent a week photographing.

The participants make or buy at $1,000 or more their own costumes which they are proud to display. At daybeak they come out along the Grand Canal to pose for amateur and professional photographers. They will pose as requested. A half-dozen photographers will gather and take turns directing the participants. Along the Canal and before buildings there will be 20 or 30 groups being photographed and handing out their business cards. I surmise that people feel anonymous in masks and are quite willing to be photographed and display their beautiful costumes.

EN: How many trips have you made there?

HR: I have only been to Venice once, this 10 day photo trip. I wanted to capture the brilliant costumes and masks.

I have been photographing since I was 12 years old starting with my mother’s camera. Of course I began with film and always have preferred color to black and white. For a number of years I have recorded digitally with Canon cameras that shoot an image the same size as the original 35mm film cameras.

These pictures were slightly enhanced in Photoshop computer software. In recent years I have worked more with floral subjects which I like to abstract and manipulate digitally in my computer. Then I make prints and display them in our living room where I can walk by them, see what I like and dislike, then improve my next images. I am most interested in making artistic images than producing an exact replica of the subject.

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Henry Roberts has a website that he states is outdated, but a brief visit to www.henryroberts.net will introduce you to sites and scenes from many more of Mr. Roberts' travels, from Maui to Mongolia to Chile, Ecuador and more. The stunning images at the Zeitgeist Cafe this month are from that magical trip to Venice.

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More arts happenings
Tonight is the final installment of the Duluth Art Institutes Design DLH series. The topic is Minnesota Nice: Good, Bad, Nice? The program begins at 5:30 p.m. at the Red Herring Lounge, 208 E. 1st Street. in Duluth. Space is limited so RSVP with the DAI.

This sixth and final session of the series will feature Sean Elmquist, Chaperone Records; Candace Lacosse, Hemlocks Leatherworks; Chris Benson, Frost River; and the Clayton Jackson McGhie Memorial Committee. It should be very interesting.

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Today is also the Tent & Trunk Show at Carlton Bike Rental in Carlton. 3 - 8 p.m. Details here.

Meantime... art goes all around you. Engage it.  

Anna Ladd: An Artist Who Helped Veterans

A recurring theme in my blogs has been showing the variety of ways creativity is being expressed. I've written about people who paint outdoors, indoors, and on doors; who paint dogs, who paint realistic, who paint abstract; who make pictures in oils, acrylics, mixed media and Conte crayons. There are also writers, poets, musicians and photographers. And there are sculptors.

While sifting through some old periodicals yesterday I came across a fascinating article in The History Channel Magazine about a sculptor named Anna Ladd.

But first…

One of the great films of the 1980s was the powerfully memorable Chariots of Fire. It’s a story of two British track and field athletes striving for gold in the 1924 Olympics. Early in the film there is a scene in a bus station that sets the post-WWI context for this film. As the athletes climb aboard we see men with a variety of contraptions on their faces and bodies, revealing the physical handicaps they came away with after their service in “the Great War.”

This is where Anna Ladd’s story comes in, and the History Channel article begins:

In the final months of 1917, groups of wounded soldiers began arriving at an artist’s studio on Rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs in the Latin Quarter of Paris. Moving haltingly and sometimes guided by helpers, they entered a courtyard filled with statues, climbed five flights, and found themselves in a large room illuminated by tall windows and banks of skylights. Their host was an imposing American with high cheekbones and pinned-back hair, a 39-year-old Bostonian named Anna Coleman Ladd. She gave them dominoes and checkers to occupy them, refreshed them with chocolates and white wine, and offered them newspapers.

As the men laughed and smoked, Ladd examined them. She studied their shot-off jaws, missing noses, and scarred and empty eye sockets. Doctors could not restore these soldiers to handsomeness, or even to ordinariness. But as a sculptor, Ladd could apply talents that the doctors lacked. She could make new faces—masks—for the men, beautifully crafting them of copper, metallic foil, and paint. And wearing their prosthetic masks, the soldiers could return to the families, fiancées, and friends they had been afraid to allow in their unsightly presence.

Physical pain is very challenging to the psyche, but disfigurement goes deeper. The film Vanilla Sky deals with the challenges David Aames, a handsome but spoiled, ultra-wealthy son of a publishing magnate must deal with when he is mutilated in a dramatic car wreck. The experience cuts to the core of who he is.

Yes, Vanilla Sky is a surreal story, but there’s nothing surreal about war. That’s why Anna Ladd, when she saw what World War I had done to many of the men who put their lives on the line, she decided to do something about it.

Ladd was an American sculptor in Massachusetts. She’s studied in Paris and Rome, but married a doctor in the States, moving to Boston in 1905. She was also a writer, producing two books and two unproduced plays. It was 1917, while they were living in Paris in her late 30’s, that she saw the cruel impact of the great conflict.

As a sculptor who had studied under Auguste Rodin, among others, Ladd used her talent to “fix faces” broken by the war. On this Veteran’s Day as we honor those who sacrificed so much, let us also remember the doctors, nurses, volunteers and even artists who have used their gifts to help bring them back.

Read here the full story of Anna Ladd’s Masks.

EdNote: Anna Ladd's Masks, written by Jack El-Hai, first appeared in the July-August issue of The History Channel Magazine and was later posted on their website in 2009.

Eleanor Rigby

Friday evening's "Love Your Local Artist" event at the Superior Library included the musical accompaniment of a string quartet, adding a perfect accent to the evening. One song the performers played was Eleanor Rigby, and a range of memories passed briefly through my mind.

First, I saw the manner in which the song was illustrated in the animated 1968 film Yellow Submarine. The song first appeared on The Beatles' Revolver album, though, in 1966. There were no guitars and no drums, only a haunting double string quartet arrangement by George Martin.

Then I recalled Mr. Harris' English class in high school where were used contemporary lyrics as a basis for studying poetic form and content. Simon & Garfunkel's "Leaves That Are Green" and The Beatles' "She's Leaving Home" come to mind.

"Ah, look at all the lonely people..."

This refrain evokes so many considerations. What would famous people like John Lennon and Paul McCartney know about loneliness? Ah, but you know their stories, their personal histories. Digging into these personal pain-pits is one of the wellsprings of great art. Then again, adolescence is precisely about loneliness, feeling outside, striving to find our fit in a world that often makes no sense.

Existentialism, too, is about loneliness, about alienation because we can never fully convey our inner selves, in part because we're still striving to understand those depths and in part because of our fear of rejection. Hence the appeal of writers like Herman Hesse whose characters often depict loneliness and alienation as they struggle for meaning in a sometimes indifferent world.

The song Eleanor Rigby brings it full circle, to the doorstep of the church itself, the place where hope and meaning are meant to be found. But instead of revealing themselves, the people, like Eleanor Rigby herself, wear masks. She keeps hers in a jar by the door. Who was it for?

Eleanor Rigby

Ah, look at all the lonely people
Ah, look at all the lonely people

Eleanor Rigby picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been
Lives in a dream
Waits at the window, wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door
Who is it for?

All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?

Father McKenzie writing the words of a sermon that no one will hear
No one comes near.
Look at him working. Darning his socks in the night when there's nobody there
What does he care?

All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?

Ah, look at all the lonely people
Ah, look at all the lonely people

Eleanor Rigby died in the church and was buried along with her name
Nobody came
Father McKenzie wiping the dirt from his hands as he walks from the grave
No one was saved

All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?

I've known loneliness. You can catch a glimpse of it in my poem Hitchhiking Across Antarctica. But as I write these words I can only express gratefulness to having been enriched by many friends, family and loved ones. Your heart can only be healed when you allow someone else to touch it.

Of Masks & Men

Yesterday the kiln was opened after this week's firing. My kids had been home the past couple weeks and something we all did was make masks. Our walls are slowly filling up with them.

Masks have been a long part of human history. Witch doctors and warriors wear masks. Actors in Greek tragedies wore masks. It seems like there are several Woody Allen films incorporating Greek tragedians absurdly placed into a modern context, something like Michael Palin's Spanish Inquisition interlopers.

I recall a scene in R. M. Rilke's Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge involving a mask. The story was Rilke's single novel, somewhat of a lament on the significance of life, death and the quest for authentic individuality. The writing is often impressionistic. The scene I recall, somewhat hazily, is of the main character trying to decide which face to put on in the morning, as if faces themselves are masks. His real face, if I remember accurately, had a hole in it.

We all know something of masks, which can be used to both reveal and conceal identities. When there is a great pain in our hearts, a cheerful mask is convenient lest too many people get too nosy, asking too many questions and picking at the scabs which you hope will soon heal. Clowns put on faces to project an impression that may be at great odds with the clown within.

"I heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley," Dylan sang in Hard Rain's Gonna Fall.

Masks are all the rage at masquerade balls, as well. I remember a Halloween party in Athens when I was in college in which my face was concealed neath a white sheet with the eyes cut out, more like the scarecrow on Wizard of Oz than a KKK style of hood. As the evening wore on, many people wondered who I was. The clue was a piece of curved rib in my hand, which I later used while beating percussions during the music we made late into the night. Only Netty connected the clue to my identity, with an eye twinkle that indicated she was not going to spoil it by telling the others where that guy in the mask had gone.

What I remember from the experience are several things. First, when we wear masks that conceal our identity, it makes people curious. Who are you? It becomes a game. In the Batman story, one ongoing theme was the perpetual curiosity regarding his true identity. Second, this concealment also gave the masked person power. Self-revelation was the masked one's perogative. Third, and also important, the mask left me alienated as well. I wanted to show people who I was. I wanted to reveal myself... and the mask left me separated. Our own masks do the same when we project something other than who we are.

Perhaps this is one of the problems with masks. And the more our mask-face it at odds with our real selves, the more alone and alienated we feel. The mask might bring us momentary attention, but there is no heart communion. To kiss, to touch, to embrace... masks and robes must be discarded.

TO BEST ENJOY THE MASKS, CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE

Masks

We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes, -
This debt we pay to human guile,
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.

Why should the world be overwise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.

We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To Thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise.
We wear the mask!

Paul Lawrence Dunbar, 1896