A mask tells us more than a face

I was at the beach with Ted and Deidre when I stumbled across Oscar Wilde and his quote about masks. It rode around in my back pocket for a few months until an art quilt group I was participating in came up with a challenge to create a small wall hanging in the design style of the artist's choice. Oscar and his mask merged with a high Victorian edition of the King Arthur legends I was reading at the time. The mask and the beaded eyelashes got a nice reception from my fellow quilters. I was done with the mask, but masks were not done with me.

The next mask took me by surprise. Of all the things I have done, this one is my favorite. It was the first time I knew, deep down in my bones, that I had managed to get what I was seeing and feeling out into the three dimensional world. I sent it to a well-known art quilt magazine in response to a call for portraits in fiber. It came back to me with a nice letter saying that, as interesting as this piece is, they preferred uplifting and inspiring fiber art. They put it on their website anyway with the other submissions and it really stuck out in the sea of pastel floral portraits.

Oscar Wilde also said that if you gave a man a mask, he would tell the truth. I like hearing the responses this mask gets. Some people recoil. Some people get excited. Everyone has an immediate, intense reaction and they start talking, telling me the silent thoughts and feelings the mask allows them to say out loud. When the rush of words is over, someone will occasionally ask me why I made it. If I could answer that question, I wouldn't have had to make the mask.