kadmium

Friday night was a good class. The class was getting friendly with each other and talking pretty openly about things. Most of the class had some sort of Native Alaskan background. I think there were two white guys (including me), and one black guy. Everyone else was either native or part-native. I told the class about a dream that I had the night before where I took a Bad Man mask and a Good Man mask and split them both between the upper lip and nose, then used the halves as drawer handles on a two-drawer dresser. (The idea being that when the drawers were closed, the masks would be whole, one on each side of the dresser.) I was kind of embarassed after I said it, because it suddenly occured to me that it might be offensive. These masks are considered a very important part of the native culture and you don’t monkey around with the traditional ones lightly — using them as drawer pulls would pretty much qualify as “not traditional”. Then one of the native women said, “Oh, sure. It’s always the white guys who have the good dreams!” and started laughing.

On Saturday afternoon, we had the opportunity to make up the class we missed on Monday due to the record snowfall. We also had the opportunity to see Joe give a slide presentation of his portfolio and the village where he grew up. This was a make-up, as well, having originally been scheduled for Sunday (the day the snow actually fell).

I gave him a ride out to the Heritage Center, since his car was otherwise occupied (his wife went skiing). We talked a lot about the masks and art in general and some about Alaskan culture. His perspective is naturally very different from most that I’ve heard, which have all been from non-native people. More about that at a later date. This is about the mask.

I didn’t finish the mask, but I did get further than I thought I would. All I need to do now it a little bit of detail work and some sanding, then I can paint it. Traditionally, this mask would have been painted with red ochre, and while I suppose I could find some of that if I looked around enough, I think I’m just going to use acrylics. I had considered putting some decoration on it, but now I think I should just leave it plain. Historically, this mask had no decoration.

As always, I’ll post more pictures when I get them. In the meantime, here are the pictures from Class 9 and Class 10.

For reference, here some pictures on the ANHC᾿s web site. Joe carved this one. We asked him if it was Good Man or Bad Man (the lips give no cue) and he laughed and said “It’s Neutral Man!”. I don’t know the guy in this picture, but his mask looks almost identical to the photograph that we used as a model. It’s pretty impressive.

Quite impressive! I have a lot of curiosity about the project, and here a few questions to begin. I don't recall you telling how lips define the GoodManBadMan mask. What is different about them? Is there a mythic structure behind the mask? Why do the GoodManBadMan masks not have decoration? Do all Alaskan masks have the prominent cheekbones? When you sand the mask, will you take out all the chip marks? That could be quite a job. Are chip marks ever left?

If you get a chance, take a picture of your tools layed out on a bench. You wrote that Joe made his adz from an auto spring leaf. Are others amenable to being built in a home shop? Tell us what kinds of tools you need. We can all watch for them on sale; they will make good gifts--and keep you carving.

Thanks for showing us this project. Everyone I show it to are impressed--makes me proud.

Comment posted by David | March 29, 2002 10:41 AM

Answers, order of questions asked:

1) I thought I had explained the difference in the lips, but I was wrong. Sorry about that. “Good Man” has a protruding upper lip (compare to the English phrase “stiff upper lip”) and “Bad Man” has a lower lip that hangs down as low as his chin. That is essentially the only difference.

2) These two masks usually appear together in dances, and those dances are usually little morality tales; “Good Man” wins, “Bad Man” loses.

3) I’m not sure why these two masks have no other decoration. It might be because they don’t represent spirits, which most other masks do. I would not be at all surprised to find out that I’m completely wrong about that.

4) No, in fact most masks that I’ve seen have no cheekbones at all.

5) I’m not sure how much smoothing I’m going to do. Since I’m not very practiced at this, my gouge marks are deep and uneven. I’ll have to smooth it out a little bit, but I’m not going to try to get it glassy-smooth. Joe sometimes leaves chip marks and sometimes doesn’t.

I was using the tools provided by the ANHC; I didn’t think about taking pictures of them. I haven’t bought any of my own yet, but I figure I should be able to get what I need for $100-$150. My short list includes a deep gouge (for removing a lot of wood quickly), a narrow, shallow gouge, a couple of standard knives (kind of like whittling knives) and a couple of the crooked knives that I described in an earlier post. Most of the masks that I’ve seen have simpler forms than this one, and I think that set up will serve me well for a while. I can’t really give you specifics about what I’m looking for because I haven’t really decided. If I do come up with a list, I’ll post it here.

Comment posted by D2 | April 1, 2002 01:26 PM

cool dave.

Comment posted by ttk | April 11, 2002 06:20 PM

The masks are very cool.

Comment posted by Steve R. | August 14, 2002 01:47 PM