Magic of the Mask

Painting of a Stag Shaman in Le Trois Freres cave in France.
Shamanism is thought to be one of the first religions practiced by humans.

Who has not felt the thrill of putting on a mask to become something other than you are otherwise seen to be? Whether it was a Vampire mask for Halloween, a Nefertiti mask for a New Year's Eve party, or makeup for a role in a play, there is something mesmerizing about taking on a different persona. And so it has been for hundreds of thousands of years.

The oldest recorded masks are 40,000-30,000 years old, depicted in Paleolithic cave art. Masks allow us to perform sacred, practical, and playful roles. In the Himalayas they were used as mediators of supernatural forces. Similarly, pictures of shamans in varied cultures reveal the use of masks to shape shift for viewers. 

Tigerman Fight painting in Bhimbetka caves in central India.

In Asia, masked characters usually represent divinities, visages of glory, and are used to ward off evil associated with both the animal and divine worlds. In the United States, Mardi Gras allows mask wearers to play and tell stories. In Oceania, where ancestral worship is prevalent, masks are instruments of revelation, giving form to the sacred. Throughout Europe there are regional folk celebrations that often employ animal masks.

Bird Woman

The magic of the mask was certainly on my mind when I created my five-session creativity workshop; one session was devoted to mask making. With plaster gauze normally used for setting broken bones, participants made a mask of each other’s face and then decorated it to imaginatively depict their inner selves. I got the idea and instructions from Goddesses In Everywoman by Jean Shinoda Bolen.

Joe Bolton - Carved cedar wood Native American mask Haisla, BC

It is my practice to do whatever I ask my students to do. I was living in Victoria, B.C. on Vancouver Island then and one of my favorite Sunday afternoon outings was to visit the Native American art gallery inside the Empress Hotel. They  displayed incredibly beautiful carved traditional masks by First Nations people of the region. Being on an island, water was visible; there were numerous beaches; and seagulls were everywhere. Perhaps it was the combination of all those factors that led me to create a bird mask using sand and sea shells I had collected on a visit to Mexico. I used a white shoestring for the top edging.

LiDoña Wagner Bird Woman Mask 1996

At that time I was aware of the symbolism of the phoenix rising from the ashes and since I had recently left a 30-year career as an international social activist, that felt appropriate. But birds are also seen as linking heaven and earth so in many cultures birds represent the immortal soul. In cave paintings at Altamira they appear to represent the flight of the soul or the spirit flight of a shaman. 

LiDoña Wagner Bird Woman Mask 1996

Although we wore our masks in the final workshop celebration, being shaped to our faces, they were not comfortable. One woman had painted both the inside and outside of her mask so she mounted it on a stick so she could turn it either way. Most of us attached a wire to the back and hung them on our walls.

This Stone mask from 7000 BC may be the oldest in the world.

Sea Nymph

Later, in a workshop in Eugene, Oregon I discovered that I really missed the water that had surrounded me in Victoria. So I decided to marble my mask with sea green and blue paints. I adorned her with a long pale green and white scarf. I called her Sea Nymph.

Everything comes from and returns to the sea. The sea represents the female aspect of the unconscious. It is the place of birth, transformation, death, and rebirth. I was recovering from breast cancer at the time which felt like a brush with death. I had also just learned of my daughter’s melanoma and knew the prognosis was not good. I was hoping that the sea’s representation of the dynamism of life would rescue my daughter. It did not.

LiDoña Wagner transformed Sea Nymph 1998-2017

Transformation

While working on my project of tracing our human migration from East Africa to all parts of the world I sometimes invite a friend to review the work and give me feedback. Captivated by the three-dimensional pieces I was making for each alcove, one such visitor spotted Bird Woman on my studio wall. She asked which alcove this mask would accompany. I told her I had made it twenty years earlier. She was adamant that it belonged in this installation of our global human journey. Oh, really?

I wasn’t sure where Bird Woman belonged but I was pretty sure that Sea Nymph went with her. However Sea Nymph began asking to be transformed. Since she was clearly of the sea, I decided to attach shells to the crown of her head. That did not work. I removed them, leaving a series of holes at the top of the mask.

Sea Nymph looked so plain and nondescript, my next thought was to carve a fish skeleton into one side of her face. The plaster started to crumble when I began cutting. So I just cut out the base form of the fish. This allowed me to create the fish skeleton separately and to make it more durable by applying additional layers of plaster gauze. Since this was a ‘sacred’ fish related to the numinous world of the unconscious, I painted the fish skeleton iridescent pearl. A small turquoise stone I have carried for years seemed an appropriate fish eye.

LiDoña Wagner transformed Sea Nymph 1998-2017

Since ancient humans used animal skins for many purposes, I decided to simply make knots in some white leather cord to fill the holes in her upper forehead. Then I began attaching shells to the area of her ears, also using white leather cord. That seemed to somehow work. I had thought to attach the fish to the nymph mask but nothing I tried seemed right, so I decided to simply hang them together.

LiDoña Wagner Gifts of the Sea assemblage 2017

Gifts of the Sea Assemblage

As I ruminated on the two masks, Bird Woman and Sea Nymph, I felt they needed to be assembled with fishnet. I bought a cotton net bag and cut it apart to resemble netting. I hung the assemblage in an available wall space until I decided it belonged with Southwest Asia. That alcove focuses on the animal life that teemed throughout the world until homo sapiens began to exterminate them and dominate earth. 

While homo sapiens were in the minority, we were keen observers of animal behavior. It was from the predator animals that we learned to kill critters and eat their meat, thus developing a hunter gatherer lifestyle. In many ways homo sapiens identified with the animals they hunted. It was natural for them to perform rituals involving the characteristics of different animals. The use of animal skins and masks impersonating animals enriched their ritual life.

My ongoing research had revealed that ancient humans used to beat bark and make it into cords and ropes. So I added some primitive rope for texture and color. I don't think the position of the rope is quite right yet. I also realize that for exhibition purposes, the assemblage requires a solid backing that can be more easily moved than creating nail configurations in every location. 

A Life’s Work

Frankly, it felt sort of dorky to be including some of my early artwork in this current body of work on our global human journey. But I have come to accept that these early masks are evidence that what I am doing is a life work. My fascination with global cultures, antiquity, communication with the gods, and empowering women are lifelong passions. 

Fang Ngil funeral mask from N. Gabon