TERRI PARKER - MASKMAKER

About the Artist

As a young adult, I became more interested in incorporating various materials in the hand-thrown, manual-wheel pottery I was working with, such as pieces of glass, marbles, small stones, dried herbs, bark, driftwood or sticks to create unique pieces. Dyeing cotton fabrics and wool yarns, I discovered how to use various botanicals as teas for coloring my handmade paper pulps as well.

Today, I have found what I believe to be a recipe uniquely separate from the ""paper mache"" technique, by bonding both a sculpting medium and a handmade blend of fibre pulp. One characteristic I find exciting about the medium is that it requires the artist to be resolute in forming the piece. The resulting mixture is similar to working a fresco in that it is a quick drying and unforgiving material that must be worked to completion during one session.

I make sure to sign and date all masks on the back. Pieces begin as a series of ideas and rough sketches, advancing into various bits of personalities or memories encountered in a lifetime. Once the design is established, the personality or legend emerges. The features being formed in the warm mixture of fibre pulp often contain dried herbs, abandoned paper wasp nests, cotton, botanical teas for color, recycled cellulose for fibre and a clay hardening agent mixed with water.

Features are worked continuously and rapidly as the mixture is self-hardening and will become too brittle to be worked. Hand painting is done in acrylic paint with a fine mist finish of clear polyurethane to seal the design and protect it from damage. Cleaning is done by lightly brushing the design with a damp cloth. All masks are completed by scripting original legends befitting their designs.