Masks, the “Big Picture”
Working over the years as an artist I have cycled through ideas and images repeatedly. I make things with my hands. I turn them over. I look at them over a period of time. I make adjustments until they are right. It’s a sort of antique indulgence that keeps me centered and disciplined. It helps me find meaning and it’s really a lot of fun.
As I revisit certain ideas and images I visualize the cycle a lot like the structure of a 33 1/3 LP record. In the early years this single groove begins at the outer edge and it is long and wide. Cycles are slow like years passing for a child waiting for Christmas and birthdays to return. With each revolution however the groove gets smaller and tighter. It appears to pick up speed so the years of an adult fly by quickly. This groove or pathway runs each cycle passing parallel to the old path setting the stage for the new path. It passes through similar territory over and over each time picking up different rhythms and variations on the same theme. So some old things are seen in a new way and some new things are seen in an old way.
One of the grooves I have visited repeatedly is the mask. It has cycled through my work in different forms since the early eighties. I explored the mask as its conventionally defined. That is as a covering for the face or head intended to disguise or transform the wearer. I made some large bronze and cast iron anthropomorphic animal masks that I exhibited individually and in groups.
Ken Little
