Blue Balancer

Materials Used:

plaster cast and paint, my face
sheep bones: pelvis, spine, vertebrae, etc., Montana

(wall mount)

This particularly striking mask, simple in design, is forceful in purpose. Made with only a blue and white painted mask and sheep bones as a base, the emotional component of Blue Balancer deals with the disentanglement or unscrambling of thoughts… and the clarification or laying bare of any complications, jumbled situations or emotions. She seems like a Goddess of Simplicity, and I call on her in contemplation when there is too much busyness or confusion going on in my mind. Again, I engage in the quiet listening process of gazing at the mask, asking a question or voicing a concern, and receive, in my imagination, a response or answer – or I simply use my gazing to calm myself. That, in itself, seems to brush away a tangled mess of thoughts and brings me back to the fundamental basic that under all that seems to be, is a sense of wellness, easiness, restful acceptance. In this sense, Blue Balancer balances me, returning me to an equilibrium and the reminder that within the dichotomy of the difficult and the soothingly easy, I can take the time to focus on clear solutions and feelings that rise to the surface from embracing Creative Source.

Why did I choose to use so few materials for this Mask Artistry piece? Simply because I had just finished an extremely complicated and busy mask with many intricacies and multiple points the viewer’s eye could explore. I wanted to balance that complicated mask with a new one with its opposite of simplicity. Blue Balancer was born. When playing with my available materials, it seemed that the mask just fit, nestled and supported in the strength of the bone cradle, and nothing else was needed.