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Mask maker and workshop facilitator Stephen Jon visited Mexico recently researching masks and mask making, here he shares some of his notes, sketches and photographs.

Chamula, waiting for Carnival to begin.

What I hoped for:

To see masks in museums: ancient masks.
To experience masks in action; contemporary masking.
To be inspired
To loosen up as an artist and get back to some impulsive work because over the last few years I have been becoming more and more refined and considered. Becoming a better sculptor but wanting to allow myself some freedom.

National Guard wearing biker's balaclava and shades

What I found:

Wonderful Museums. Some of the best laid out museums I have experienced, with clear spaces and a respectful limit on interpretation panels.

Workmen with Scarves:Teotihuacan

In Mexico City, Museo Nacional Antropologia. After one day of drawing in the ground floor galleries I just had to spend another full day drawing upstairs in the Ethnography rooms which were just full of masks in the context of indigenous cultures. Many masks which I already know from publications.

In Oaxaca, I fell in love with the Museo Rufino Tamayo, a collection of ancient artefacts displayed according aesthetics. Only a few rooms but exquisite works beautifully laid out.

I did a lot of drawing as well as photography in order to really look at and experience what I or my camera might see.

Already I have implemented some of this experience in the mask making work I am doing in schools. Adapting what I have understood about forms and techniques to the needs and abilities of young people.

Some Thoughts:
What is all this fuss about authenticity. I bought some cheap masks from the street, market and tourist shops. They are made by Mexicans and surely the way I will use them in workshops and performance gives them life, this is my kind of authenticity.
I am not interested in detailed provenance for investment and for collectors.

Looking at Mayan Faces. Both in art and in life, looking and seeing has fed my fascination for the Neutral Mask. Don’t know yet how this will manifest but I have been thinking about creating new neutrals since replicating Balinese Neutrals by Alit for John Wright last year.

Looking at Essence of Face. Once again, as I draw gloriously simplified sculptural forms which represent The Face, I am drawn to some sort of enquiry into The Naïve Mask.
I intend to make a new set of naives.

For more information on Stephen’s work, click here to visit his website

A Photographic Exhibition in support of Khmer Legacies

www.khmerlegacies.org

Location: The Michaelhouse Centre, Trinity Street, Cambridge

Private View: Tuesday, August 18th, 2009; 6:30pm - 10:00pm

Exhibition in the cafe (8:00am - 5:00pm) from August 17th - 29th

www.michaelhouse.org.uk

Tim travelled to Cambodia and Laos in 2007 and captured the serenity and power of this fascinating corner of the world, famous for the mystical temples of Angkor Wat, Koh Ker and Preah Vihear.

Travelling with Cambodian director Socheata Poeuv, Tim was inspired by her story told in the award-winning documentary, New Year Baby, where she retraced her origins back to the refugee camp of her birth and revealed her father’s quiet bravery in leading his family to escape from the Khmer Rouge to a new life in America.

New Year Baby, which will be available on DVD at the exhibition, won the Amnesty International Award for Movies that Matter, and has garnered many awards on the international film festival circuit since, for its powerful, and ultimately uplifting message.

This exhibition is presented in support of Socheata’s current project “Khmer Legacies”, which is committed to providing rehabilitation for Cambodian survivors of the Pol Pot regime by recording their experiences in a permanent video archive. This will make a huge difference to them and their families, as well as to Cambodia’s future since, almost thirty years after the event, the first steps towards War Crimes hearings are only now being made.

Cinema in a barn at a local Suffolk organic food fest showing DVD’s of local interest. One of these showed a contemporary sculpture of three figures on a raft being dragged out and moored in the reeds somewhere near Snape. I went looking for them without any luck, if you see them please post directions.

Scallop by Maggi Hambling, Aldeburgh Beach, Suffolk. Made in 10mm stainless steel celebrating British composer Benjamin Britten.

Fabricated by a local craftsman whose signature sits next to the artist’s; Maggi Hambling referred to the scallop as ‘a conversation with the sea’.

Whatever associations the form may have with listening, with the sounds and forms of nature, and with the words from Peter Grimes punctured into the rim of the shell: ‘I hear those voices that will not be drowned’; its form and positioning caused a mixed response from the local people.

Arguments ranging from objecting to the positioning as it spoilt the natural wildness of the place, to its form being inappropriate, scallops not being associated with shingle beaches. Whatever the pros and cons it can be seen at holiday times to be a place that families gather to hide behind, to climb on, shelter under and generally hang about. Decide for yourself, it can be found on the walk from Aldeburgh to Thorpeness on the Suffolk coast.

Bronze sculpture by Barbara Hepworth - The Family of Man (1970) installed at Snape Maltings Aldeburgh 1976 on permanent loan as a memorial to Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears at the request of the Hepworth Estate. It sits in the flat lands of the Suffolk coast looking out to reeds beds, skyscape, water and birds in one direction and a very full car park of visitors to Snape on the other.

The ancient art of fruit carving is not dead! Seen recently at a conference in the futuristic Curve building in Leicester. Created by Sanjay Foods who also provided some very tasty meals.