On my return from Italy I was approached by Gillian Twaite to design and create a set of masks for her new childrens show ‘Don’t Blame It on The Wlof’. There seems to be an interesting trend occuring here as one of my previous commisions was a wolf for Sir Rhubarb and The Green Wolf.

The first of this set Mrs Pig is now complete.I look forward to up loading more pictures of her in action at ArtsFest and on stage at The Library Theatre in October.

The process:

Mrs Pig Ready To Go

Mrs Pig Painted

Unpainted

Straight from the mold

( the ears had to be cast separatley)

Clay design about to be cast in plaster

There were various technical concerns with the making of Mrs Pig as she needed to be a full head mask but I wished to make a negative mold of the clay design. This meant the ears had to be cut from the design and cast separately and the head itself was cast in two halves and joined together in the making process.

Clay Design Complete

Mrs Pig Design

I sometimes work through another stage of the process which is to make a clay maquette to explore design possibilities but I was quite clear with Mrs Pig from the outset and did not feel the need to do this.

Creating a Maquette can be a valuable way of exploring your ideas and uncovering any potential flaws in your design before creating it full size.

Maquette for Naive Mask Design

Final Design for Naive Mask

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This year as well as leading a range of projects and workshops I have also been focusing on my own Creative Professional Development with a range of companies. The course that has perhaps pushed my own practice the furthest and inspired me the most, not only in the creation of performances but also as a mask maker was the amazing Summer School led by Michael Vogel of Familie Floez one of the leading mask companies.

Taking place in Italy the whole experience was an amazing week of Sun masks and play with a truly international group of participants. We are all still in touch which I think expresses something of the work itself.

The work was demanding in the best possible way with Michael pushing each of us to work that bit deeper to reflect upon the process and create performances that conveyed truth. It was both technical and incredibly creative.

The bit I wasn’t expecting was that Michael, during siesta time,  shared some of the making and particularly the finishing skills of the Floez masks. Si

The week culminated in two presentations of our work one at the farmhouse where we had lived and worked and one on the streets of nearby San Casciano where our masked characters roamed the streets.

One person who really does need a mention here is Gianni, Floez company manager, responsible for making this unique experience happen. Getting us all to and from the farm house, co ordinating, sorting, and just generally being a great guy. It was his parents who cooked for all the participants each day. It was he who arranged all the transport and made it all possible.

Amazing, stunning, beautiful. One of the best experiences. I  now have a sketch book packed with notes, sketches and inspirations that I will be taking into my own practice this Autumn and beyond and I am already thinking that going to Berlin to spend more time with the company will be my next mission.

I have just been doing some preliminary research for a new project that will begin in October and got all excited and inspired about possibilities and masks

The project will involve working with BRB’s education team and young people from a youth group to create a performance piece incorporating mask making and mask work inspired by the ballet Cyrano. The process should be  a highly creative one and will be led by the  groups response to the performance.

There are several other artists involved in the project, which is being co-ordinated by Juliet Raynsford. And there will be a day of sharing the work at The Patrick Centre just before Christmas.

This has been a busy week with the conclusion of one project, extensive rehearsals for another and the start of a third (more about those later). The project that concluded this week was organised and set up by Jane Ward from Hagley Catholic school. It involved a range of artists from various disciplines working with feeder primary schools and another local secondary school to produce interpretations of JAZZ. The project began with a Jazz Concert performed in each of the schools by The Aaron Diaz Quartet.

Rehearsals at Our Lady and St Kenelm School

The school I worked with, Our Lady and St Kenelm in Halesowen , began the project by letting me record their immediate responses to the concert. This was later used in conjunction with the Jazz recording to produce a sound track to their performance.

During my weeks residency the young people devised a story, created characters, made masks, recorded audio and put it all together into one structure. The ideas were very much their own interpretations. The process also involved them in negotiating within their groups and really taking ownership of the work.

The results of the project as a whole  were showcased at Hagley School last Thursday. It was a busy, but fantastic day well organised and very engaging. It was good to see what the other schools had been up to. The standard was very high and it was obvious that all  the young people had been through a very enjoyable creative process.

Here’s a couple of pictures that I manged to take at the wonderful events organised by Celebrating Sanctuary. It seems particularly important to up load these as I made a promise to two participants pictured wearing their creations.

They both visited the dramask stall several times during the day to continue to work on their masks as they wanted to make them stronger and better. The design ideas were entirely their own and the results they achieved in such a short space of time says much about their determination and artistic talent. So, as promised your masks are now on my website.

Best wishes,

Pyn

This weekend sees Celebrating Sanctuary providing entertainment, education, great music and free activities in the centre of Birmingham Victoria and Chamberlain Squares.

I am really pleased to be part of this once again and although in previous years my involvement has been through the delivery of theatre and drama based work exploring mask and identity has proved an interesting focus for my own mask making practice.

If you are in town this Saturday Celebrating Sanctuary is a not to be missed treat. Activities and entertainment start at around 11 am.

Despite the torrents of rain that started the day, a day in the park in a marquee proved to be lots of fun. The new Dramask banner, of which I am rather pleased with received it’s first outing and Jen and I enjoyed mask making with all the amazing people who turned out despite the rain. A backdrop of chilled out music was provided by Marc Reck (mr elephant presents) and Mark Smallman (Custom Made).

There was lots going on that was both fun and informative and it is definatley worth checking out for another year if you missed it on  Saturday.

Dramask has been working hard with the Mr Elephant Collective to programme an afternoon of FREE workshops to get the bank holiday and half term off to a creative start.

Join us at THE HARE and HOUNDS, Kings Heath this Saturday for a packed workshop programme (3pm – 7pm). There will be mask decorating, poi spinning and poodle puppets and animation happening  in the garage – these will be drop in sessions and open to all ages.

Bookable workshops will consist of : D.J, V.J, Beatbox, Loop Pedal and Drumming. If you are interested in any of those they can be booked on the day just by turning up at The Hare and Hounds – from 2pm. The V.J and D.J workshops will only be open to adults but the rest are available to children if accompanied. Please e mail me if you require further information.

Hope to see you there

Check out Mr Elephant here for information about the day and evening. There is some fantastic music lined up from 7.30.

There has been a lot of hard work going on over the last few months to put together a quite different Project X. This is going to come together this Saturday in the heart of Mosley Village with a range of art works, performances and great music.

The venues are The Church, The CDT building and The Cross upstair with performance also happening at the cross roads. It all starts at 12pm and goes on until 2pm.

I have been developing some performance work with two other artists Rahil and Lucy. This time it has been heavily influenced by the fantastic structural costumes created By Deb Mingham

To find out more about the event check out the project X website here

As part of the CBSO’s school concerts programme a variety of creative projects are organised. I have enjoyed being a part of these for some time and have been developing a strong working relationship with musician Jackie Tyler within this re mit.

Our most recent collaboration, developing a teachers pack exploring Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet through drama and composition is now complete and yesterday  we co facilitated a CPD day for teachers.

The staff who came from a range of primary school s in Birmingham, Telford and Northhampton really impressed us both with their enthusiasm willingness to take part in a very practical session.

The feedback was very positive and I hope to hear from the schools again as I am interested to find out how they will use the exercises, drama work and music with their classes.

A copy of the pack will be available as a resource in the near future by following this link to Jackie Tylers’ website.