Mask and Painting Workshops

We had our final community workshop for the Bibleway mural on the14th. This time around, my assistants and I spent the week before constructing a mask that will stand a foot and a half from the wall and 7 feet in diameter. In addition to painting panels of the mural, people took part in decorating the mask with stained glass and beads .

Here are a few photos from the various workshops and paint days...






For the first day I had everyone start off by painting the most important image of the wall, the main figures face.


Katherine Clark Gray led a series of maskmaking workshops over the summer with bibleway youth. Inspired, I felt it would be appropriate to incorporate masks into the design and run with it as a theme, culminating in the class returning to work on one last HUGE mask. Here she is setting up guidelines before the workshop






Once everything is laid out glass and beads were cut and adhered to the mask.


While the mask is worked on, some people chose to stick with painting mural panels. Having the group on the mask provided this man some elbow room to add his finishing touches.


The almost finished mask. Due to weather, the mask will have to be installed during the springtime. The overall shape was broken into two pieces to make installation easier, and to get the piece in and out of the building.

My Progress so far...

Its cold out there...

I need one more good day over 50 degrees to install the rest of the mural. Everything else is just painting directly on the wall and touch-ups.

We had our final community workshop on the 14th where we painted and decorated with glass a 7 foot in diameter mask that will stand out a foot and a half in relief from the wall. Pics to follow

Heres a "Time Lapse" video of the mural's progress

"From Behind the Mask" Mural Installation

Nothing Like the last minute...

I was fortunate to find a window of opportunity to install a 15ft x 18ft mosaic piece on the Bibleway Wall this past week, in spite of the weather getting colder by the day. I had 2 days of mild temperatures to work with, and with the help of my 5 man crew, we wrapped up just in time.

Here is a shot of the Murals design.

The design took its inspiration from a summers worth of neighborhood programs involving writing, painting, and maskmaking, and is very loosely inspired by the Paul Lawrence Dunbar poem "We Wear the Mask". The theme revolves around healing, and the ways in which ones faith and surrounding friends and neighbors can provide support. The photos are taken from actual events over the summer, and the two main figures were summer participants who posed for me. The imagery of the waterfall in the arches appears as actual stained glass that my assistants and I spent a month cutting. The waterfall continues in paint below the bridge. The water and the idea of reflection were a way of bringing religious elements to the design without being too heavy handed. The design was a collaborative effort between my Graterford Prison Class and myself.

Now that there is a tiny bit of background on the design... here is the mosaic installed, which at the time of this photo is 90% finished. It took a month to cut in my studio, and its my most ambitious mosaic piece to date. Its comprised of about 40-50 different colors, and (in terms of total square footage) my largest stained glass piece.




This week will probably be the last bit of decent weather we have this year, and I was very lucky to get this up in time. I wasn't particularly fond of leaving the arches blank until the springtime.

the small pic doesnt do the cuts justice, so here are a few details