The Imp Plays

Materials used:

painted plaster cast of my face;
two separate wood pieces, Montana;
green tree lichen and gray tree moss, Hyalite Canyon, Montana;
bark and woodchips, Hyalite Canyon, Montana

(wall mount)

This simple mask is one of pure whimsy. For me, it is a child's delight, or the acknowledgment of our honoring absolute play and sheer frolicking in our lives. It could be the playmate I had in my imaginative childhood, sometimes mischievous and always leading me, giggling, on to the next fancy or gamble. As a child, in London, I grew up with very few playmates and I remember often playing by myself underneath the backyard garden hedges, making fairy houses with tiny stolen treasures from my parents’ house. Imagination ran rampant in my playtime. Thimbles became fairy cups and spools of thread became sitting stools. My mother read me The Borrowers children books about tiny beings using items “borrowed” for their own uses in their little houses… and it seems I took those books to heart. I would create oh so many minuscule villages beneath the hedges, lying on my tummy in the ecstasy of make-believe for hours.

That is the spirit of this mask… ready to embrace the next romp or game or adventure into a child-like imagination, whether we, now, are youthful or elderly. Let us celebrate playtime!

Simple materials of tree lichen and moss, bark and woodchips combine with two wood pieces. The larger piece serves as the base for the mask and the other is a small piece of driftwood I had sitting in my living room for years. The shape of that top piece of wood, imp-like in its own natural form, seems to have a face with two eyes, a nose and a mouth, and two ear-like protrusions above the face. When I created this Mask Artistry piece with the idea of play as the intentional foundation, this driftwood piece “begged” to be a part of the end creation and a further reflection of the notion of whimsy. Enjoy.