THE SONG OF DEATH IS SILENCE

The Song of Death is Silence is a series of masks that are made of natural materials such as wood, reed, bamboo, hog gut and elk sinew.

 Masks have been a fixture of human culture since at least the Stone Age—they are a form of disguise, protection or a medium for projecting or inhabiting another being.  The mask changes the identity of the wearer. Masks worn on holidays, like Halloween and Mardi Gras, for example, give revelers license they wouldn’t ordinarily enjoy. 

 Masks not only signal festivity and license; they have been widely used in the theater, beginning with Greek drama and continuing through medieval mystery plays, the Italian commedia dell'arte and Japanese No drama, to project character.

Masks are also used for religious and spiritual purposes.  When used in rituals, change in the identity of the wearer for that of the mask is vital, for if the spirit represented does not reside in the image of the mask, the ritual petitions, supplications, and offerings made to it would be ineffectual and meaningless. The mask, therefore, most often functions as a means of contact with various spirit powers, thereby protecting against the mysterious forces of nature by prevailing upon their potential beneficence.

Although the masks in The Song of Death is Silence are derived from a lifelong fascination with masks in general, I am especially indebted to Alaska Native masks.  Many of the masks are mounted on simple crosses, an homage to the appendages on some Inupiaq and Yupik masks as well as a reference to the cross of the grave.  Working with natural materials like gut and sinew allows me to explore the roots of human creativity--to use stuff our Stone-Age ancestors used.  That is exciting.

The Song of Death is Silence will open on the First Friday of March, 2012, at the IGCA, Anchorage, Alaska.