About The Maskmaker
My name
is Jeanne, and I have been making masks for almost 20 years. In college I
traveled
to Italy and studied with the University of Georgia's Cortona art
program
for a summer. At the time I was a ceramic sculptor and painter. Upon
visiting
Venice, I was introduced to paper mache masks as an art. Up until that
time I had a very narrow view of masks and their place in our culture.
Since people, and faces in particular, were the focus of my own art I
was
fascinated by the masks of Venice; with their variety and quality. Upon
returning home I began to experiment with paper mache on my own. As an
artist, I had always felt constrained by the limitations of my two
chosen
mediums; ceramics and painting. I craved the dimensionality of ceramic
sculpting, yet the slip and slide of oil paints and the vibrancy of the
colors also seemed necessary to me. In paper mache I had found a medium
which I could sculpt by hand and then paint. And since faces are my
focus,
making masks just seemed like the logical evolution of my work. The
masks
which I make allow me to explore the art of the face in extensive
detail
and variation. In the last several years I have taken the paper mache
another
step. By integrating paper mache with traditional oil painting on
canvas
I have created several large pieces of relief wall sculpture which are
then painted with oils. If you would like to see a few of them
then you can visit
the art gallery. Some of the pieces shown there
are in my own collection and are available for sale,
others are already sold and a part of someone's private collection. If
you have a question please email
me to discuss it.