In late December I was invited to participate in an upcoming exhibition and fundraising support event called The Maskuerade for local art gallery Vangarde Arts which has, as is unfortunately the case with many arts organizations, suffered during the pandemic.

Vangarde Arts has been a great supporter of the arts in Sioux City as well as of Morningside College, so I happily agreed to participate. Vangarde provided each invited artist with a white cotton 3-ply face mask, and asked that each mask be made into a unique artwork. The pieces are then to be auctioned off with the proceeds going to support their organization.

This was more of a challenge than I think many viewers might realize for several reasons:

• The substrate (the face mask) is rather small and of a defined form already, so there’s limited room to work.

• As an artist, I think you want to embrace the media you’re working with - so making it unrecognizable as a face mask to me ends up defeating the purpose of the challenge.

• While I think one could pretty easily paint on a cotton mask as a canvas, I question whether viewers will easily differentiate an original painting from an existing fabric print. This meant I felt I needed to get somewhat sculptural while still embracing the substrate and its intended function in order to really make it transform identifiably into an original artwork.

• I didn’t want to lose my own artistic focus and hand - I wanted to make this piece work within my oeuvre rather than existing outside of it.

I mentally wrestled for weeks just in trying to develop a concept, and then with only a vague starting point in mind I then physically wrestled with the mask itself for a couple weeks to try to see if that manipulation would inspire me to come up with an artistic solution. Finally all the reflection and experimentation paid off, and with an idea in mind all I then had to do was execute it!

This is Synthesis, a wearable mixed media artwork including a white cotton mask, thread, acrylic, gel, Cladonia rangiferina “reindeer lichen,” Tillandsia usneoides “Spanish moss,” pine needles, and bark. Its dimensions are 7x13x4.5”.

The Maskuerade exhibition will have open house hours on February 11, 12, and 18 from 6-7pm in Vangarde Arts which is located at 416 Pierce St, Sioux City, IA 51101. An online auction will be open from February 15-18, and a silent auction and Fat Tuesday on Friday celebration will be held February 19 at 6pm with a live auction following at 7pm.