Set Mask Update: The Plaster is Applied

Forging ahead:

Having had dinner and taken my life into my hands while walking the dogs ('icy" does NOT begin to describe walking conditions out there!) I repaired to the basement with a bowl of water and some prepared papier mache gauze.

First I had to trim up the screen.  One of the real advantages of using this plastic screen is that you are not risking life and limb when  you work with it:  the last time I made a mask I used metal screen and bled profusely over the mask--which is, according to my costuming friends, necessary in order to ensure costume success.

I also ran an extra piece of foam board across the top of the mask to keep the ears from doing anything stupid like tilting inwards, and cut out part of the handle that had remained up to this point.

Cutting the gauze into strips, I started covering the mask.  At some point I noticed that the ears were too short, so I added length to the ears and covered over them.  I've left openings for the eyes that are large:  these will not only allow wide vision but also ventilation.

If there is an issue with vision after the plaster has dried, I will be able to cut through the plaster and screen to make the mask work.   But that will have to wait till tomorrow, when the plaster has completely dried.

You might wonder about the flat top of the mask:  no worries!  All Egyptian gods wore headdresses, and Set here will be no exception.  I might glue half a styrofoam ball to the front to help shape the "forehead" but otherwise this should be fine.  I gave some thought to opening up the top but I'm not sure how that would work.

Tomorrow:  check fit and eyes, and then another coat of plaster.

Onward!

Shaping Set: A Mask Project Part 1

Gods for Modern Times:  Sutekh
by Sophia Kelly Shultz

Popular literature--and some modern cults--portray the ancient Egyptian god Set (also known as Set, Sutekh or Typhon) as "evil."  After all, he murdered and dismembered his brother Osiris:  how much more dastardly can you get?  Why, he probably has tea with Osama bin Laden on a regular basis!

A little research reveals this to be a very simplistic description of an enormously complex deity who represented not evil, but something that the ancient Egyptians found to be far more terrifying:  chaos.  Set represented the chaos of storms, of the untamed desert, and of change.  Chaos was BAD.  It was one step away from the thing that they found most terrifying:  oblivion.

The ancient Egyptians did not, for the most part, love Set, but they accepted him as part of their cosmology because he provided the thing which the Egyptians valued above everything--balance.  The Egyptians were a very practical people:  you can't have good without evil; you can't have order without chaos.

I am in charge of Body Tribal, which will be held the second weekend of August at Four Quarters Farm  www.4qf.org  , and the theme this year is the Egyptian netherworld.   I'm sure there is a way to stage the dramas I have in mind without masks, but I can't envision acting out a judgement scene or the Osirian drama without animal-headed gods.

This is the first part of a blog about making a mask of the god Set.

It was supposed to be a blog about making a mask of the god Anubis, but that plan went south when I realized that with the exception of the ears the mask looked more like Set than Anubis.  Finally, I caved in and changed the ears.  So, this is in fact the first part of a blog about making a mask of the god Set.

I had found a website that suggested using a gallon jug as an armature for a mask.  I liked this idea, so I started with this shape.  I cut away much of the bottle, leaving the top and handle intact.


I tried gluing the foam board ears to this shape but was unsuccessful, so instead I punched holes into the center of the handle and around the perimeter of the remaining jug shape, then cut sections of nylon screen and laced wire through them and into the holes in the jug handle.

 I then punched holes matching those in the jug into the ears and threaded wire through them and into the jug.  It was at this point that I realized that the ears were too high, so I had to unthread the wire, move the holes, and re-thread the wire.  Very exciting.

Archaeologists have no clue what sort of animal Set was.  He had square-tipped ears and a tail that forked at the end:  suggestions have included everything from aardvarks to giraffes.  It is simpler to refer to him as "the Set animal" or "Typhonian beast".  On the left you can see one square-tipped ear mounted on the jug-armature.

Of course, the jug handle is not nearly long enough for a mask that covers an adult human's face.  I cast about the basement for something tubular, and when nothing was readily apparent, I took a scrap of foam board (I'm an artist; I have lots) and scored it on one side (right).  Now the normally rigid foam board will curl around nicely to form a snout.

Looks like a gas mask!

I next sliced the screen right at the handle level and lifted it up so that I could wire the snout to it.  I glued the snout together and am now waiting for the glue to set (nice pun, huh?) so that I can continue on.  I may have to shorten the snout, but that will be easy enough once the glue has set.

As you see, this is not your "Halloween mask for beginners" mask.  Tomorrow it may even begin to look like something!

Tutorial: Fluffing Vintage Silk Flowers

When I got hold of the box of Mary Beth's flattened vintage flowers, I went online looking for information on how to un-flatten them.  The bulk of what I found involved using iron steam:  there was a problem with this because of the sheer volume of flowers with which I was faced.  If you are restoring more than a few flowers you will need more and hotter steam to unfold them without scalding your fingers.

Flat Anemone

Flat Pansies

The materials from which vintage flowers are made vary:  there are ones that are crisp;  ones that appear to be made of organza; and ones of silky velvet.  Naturally, each material behaves differently as it is exposed to steam:  it is important to treat each flower individually.

Aside from reshaping the flowers, areas of concern are leaves and stems.  Florists' tape and glue seem particularly susceptible to the effects of steam.  If it sits all right with you that you might have to re-glue some leaves to their wire armatures and that your stems will for a time become sticky, then by all means proceed.  Otherwise, I would say go for the steam from your iron.

The Pot

You will need a soup pot, a colander that will fit over the mouth of the stew pot, a heat-resistant measuring cup, and a lid.  For shaping larger, round flowers, a custard cup works nicely.

Fill your soup pot a third of the way and set it to boil.  Set your colander over the water, and be sure that it sits well above the water (you don't want slosh over from a rolling boil).

Before you set your flowers into the colander, you will want to try to unfold and shape them a bit.  Be ginger with them, but these flowers are tougher than you  might think.  Again, the leaves and stems may be more delicate than the flowers themselves.

Measuring Cup in the Colander

Arranged in the Colander

At first, you will set the flowers around the measuring cup.  Cover the colander with a lid and do a couple of dishes or unload the dishwasher--I get a lot of chores done while I am steaming flowers!  The point is that small tasks provide good intervals between  adjusting the flowers' positions.

Note:  this whole process requires PATIENCE.  No matter how focused you think you are, you cannot try to push through an entire box of flowers in one afternoon.  Each flower requires individual attention and rushing just doesn't work.  You'll find yourself getting frustrated and tossing your failures back into the box for another day.

As time passes and the flowers' fabric relaxes, you'll want to take the flowers out and adjust them, folding petals back and unfurling leaves.  This may require turning the flowers, laying them face-down over the measuring cup, or gently tucking them into the cup one at a time.

DO check the flowers OFTEN.  When I say that you can get chores done, I do NOT mean that you can clean the whole bathroom in between checking the flowers.  If you compartmentalize your hypothetical bathroom cleaning to clean toilet+check flowers, clean bathtub+check flowers, etc., your results will be much more satisfactory.  If you steam too long or hard, you will for example find that you have inadvertently eliminated the texturing on the leaves.

Custard Cup

With roses, anemones and other large symmetrical flowers, the next step after the steamy measuring cup is a cool down in a custard cup.  This will help the flower to retain a shape:  otherwise it will be a lovely, steamed, FLAT flower.   Once the flower has cooled and dried, it will take on a three dimensional appearance.

Note:  I am still working out the issue of reforming flowers that have been wired together.  I'll post more when I find some solution.

Further Note:  You will also find that there is a certain percentage of your flowers that will not immediately respond to your best efforts.  For example, the batch I photographed had daisies that would not unfold themselves to my satisfaction.  I just put them aside until something else occurs to me.

This batch also contained velvet pansies which had been pretty well smushed.  These responded well, with considerable manipulation.  To my surprise, I discovered that they are more resilient than I had expected:  one accidentally got wet and dried well without losing most of its softness. (You don't want to do that too much, though:  it wreaks merry havoc with the glue holding it together.)

Unflat Pansies

Unflat Anemone

As you can see, the pansies are now open and more lifelike, and the anemone has gone from flat to three-dimensional with the soft lines it should have.


To avoid crushing the flowers , I suggest poking holes in the top of a shoe box lid:  some flowers can be stored inside the box, and more delicate ones can be stuck upright through the lid.

Good luck!

Relaxing the Flowers

Helen Gombar, my friend Mary Beth's mother, started her career as a milliner.  She made beautiful hats; I have seen some of them.

To make beautiful hats, one needs the right materials, including hat blocks for shaping, display stands, and decorative elements such as feathers and flowers.

Helen had LOTS of each.  Display stands occur in profusion in the basement:  together they comprise a virtual forest of hat display ware.

Marlene Dietrich?

Hat Blocks (and Canned Goods)

Deco Hat Stand

Likewise, the hat blocks occur in large numbers.  When I gathered them up in one place earlier this year I lost count at 40.  Some are one solid piece of wood; others are sectioned so that they can be removed without disturbing the shape of the newly formed hat.  There are brims and crowns of every conceivable size and shape.  It is really something to see.

Today I came upon a box of silk flowers that had clearly been intended for hat decoration.  I had known of the box's existence, but haven't had much of a chance to do more than glance inside.  Because I have nothing better to do (HA!) I decided to bring them home and see about steaming them.

What a Mess!

The contents of the box were a mess.  If my calculations are correct they have been in the basement for twenty years, and some of the flowers probably date back much further.   The flowers, which are silk or velvet are crushed and bent.

I looked online.  Advice online includes using a hair dryer or steam from an iron.  I opted for the iron:  my iron throws LOTS of steam.


Only my iron seemed woefully inadequate when pitted against the huge pile of flowers, and there seemed to be an increasing chance that I would burn my fingers.

I got out the big soup pot, the colander, and a lid, set a bunch of water to boil, and then steamed the flowers.  Well, some of them, at least.

Those of you who are into Cyberpunk will perk up at these beautiful black flowers that unfolded in my steamer.  They are not perfect, many of them being more than fifty years old, but they are in better condition than you might expect.  The large black roses are a combination of velvet and organza, and have soft stems rather than the heavy gauge wire stems we see these days.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the biggest issue with these flowers is with the leaves, which have often come unglued after years of sitting in a box in a mostly but not always dry basement.  Steaming the flowers did not make this worse, as far as I can tell.

Some of the flowers, like the ones at the right, literally popped open with exposure to the steam.  There is some slight discoloration in the white flowers, but often it is so uniform that it's difficult to tell whether or not they were originally off white.  I have some ideas for whitening the flowers (NOT involving bleach, thank you very much!) and will experiment on those flowers I deem irredeemable.

The variety of flowers is staggering:  not only do are there roses, there are daisies, gladiolas, sweet peas, wisteria, peonies, and orange blossoms.  There are strings of tiny roses and bunches of asters and little velvet grapes.

I hope that I can recover some of these treasures.  So far I think it's gone pretty well, but I also think I did the "easy" ones first.

Next up...FEATHERS!

Small Victories

Panoramic View of the Front of the Store

About a month ago, I posted part of a story about Organization Project at my friend's fabric store.  When I started helping out there, over a year ago, I couldn't walk far in any direction, but the back of the store was a frightening mess.  First of all there was the wildly out of control fake furs (nicknamed "Jim Henson's Creature Workshop"):  these come on huge bolts and had taken on a life of their own to the point that the area behind the front counter was knee-deep in acrylic fur.  Attempts to organize these on the cutting table in that region of the store were stopgap at best:  if my friend needed a specific color it was inevitably on the bottom and getting it out would result in another furry avalanche.  I can't tell you how dirty I got, how much I sneezed, or many times I lost my Bluetooth, water bottles and other things (last night I found a roll of tape that HAD to have been there over a year) in my quest to bring order to this chaos.

It was behind and below the furs, in the sweltering near-darkness, underneath a display table in the back, that I discovered the Lurex brocades.  If you picture Indiana Jones pulling glittering treasure out of a dark tomb, then you get the idea.  (BTW, I have the hat:  it was a gift from someone who said I was the only person they knew who was qualified to wear it).

 It was a remarkable time for me.  Fabrics I had only seen in finished garments emerged by the bolt, in perfect condition. I was galvanized and spent a great deal of time making sure I had extracted all of these potentially collectible textiles.




Of course, all good things come to an end.  Once I had extracted all of the treasure, I had to have a place to put it.  This required more fabric tossing, usually of bolts of polyester doubleknit, straight to the back of the store.  And thus, once again, the very back of the store became impassible.


Out of necessity, our priorities shifted.  There were many cottons, and as our region has many quilters, we spent time organizing these.  We pulled out and shelved bridal fabrics and trims that hadn't seen the light of day in years.

And This is AFTER We Did Some Organizing!

We also needed to keep the sales floor clear because there was the concern that a customer would trip over something (this remains a consideration, though perhaps less so than previously).  

So the back of the store sat.  

And sat.

And sat.

Until August, when we started looking at the costumes at the back of the store with an eye towards selling them.  Digging commenced:  fur cascaded; remnants of polyester came down in doubleknit avalanches; three-tier slips tried to take over.

...I hadn't mentioned the slips, had I?

Bridal slips have become the bane of my existence.  They are poufy, slippery, take up a LOT of room, and they were EVERYWHERE.  So along with the bolts of polyester, the slips became missiles, filling up space at the back of the store like packing peanuts.  In sections the pile was six or seven feet high.

Finally I had to do something.  The front of the store had once again cycled around to critical mass and I needed room to put more fabric away--and there was only one place left to put it.  

A chief deterrent had been the polyester fabric.  There were bolts and bolts and bolts of it, and the owner and I finally came to the agreement that I would leave the gabardines out but put the qianas away.  (For those of you who don't know, qiana is the silky fabric that disco dresses, those funky print shirts of the 70s, and the dresses in the original Battlestar Galactica were made of. The name "qiana"was randomly generated by a computers at DuPont Corproation in 1968.  

The second difficulty arose from the fact that the huge display table that occupies the back wall of the store had been so overloaded with fabric that it had broken, necessitating a Day of Carpentry.  I had to move fabric for that as well, and the resulting mess was spectacular.  But the table got fixed.     

Now I delved into the closet under the steps, yet another fearsome mess which to date I had actively avoided.  And got lost.  At one point my friend couldn't find me, and had to call me on my cell phone. I am pleased to report that I have signal in Uncle Joe's closet.   Then I called my good friend Beth and said, "Gosh, I could really use some help in the store again."  

Beth is a fantastic organizer.  She came up and gamely stacked bolts of qiana in the closet until it was stuffed (I should point out that qiana is slippery as heck and thus really a paint to stack), going so far as to clear out the closet in the front of the store so that we could store useful fabric there.  Meanwhile, I attempted to organize the remaining doubleknits and move the furs over to the newly repaired display table.

Yet at the end of that evening, even knowing that we had done a tremendous amount of work, neither Beth no I could SEE any progress.  The aisle I'd hoped to clear wasn't even visible, and there still seemed to be too many polyesters.  Even though I had relegated most of the slips to a huge barrel, the barrel was stacked on top of another and leaning at an alarming angle.  We left the store downtrodden, and were only cheered by some of David's amazing cooking.  

The next day I went in, planning to deal with the issue.  HA.  It's October.  My friend rents and sells costumes.  It was NUTS.  All I succeeded in doing was making a bigger mess.

Now I was REALLY frustrated.  I told my friend I would come Tuesday evening and just do it.  

And I did.  Four hours, twenty sneezes, three broken fingernails, and a fair amount of dirt later I managed to not only carve a path through the back, but also organize everything, including the fur.  If I go in this morning it may actually be possible to make a circuit (however circuitous) around the store for the first time in years.  

Whee!

On the Just Shaping of Murals

This past weekend, I challenged myself to do a door-sized mural in a day.  I had been commissioned to do work for a store called Portals in Berkeley Springs, WV; the owner was thrilled when I suggested that we use "doors" and "windows" as the theme.

In August, I went into the store, which is in a beautiful building where homeopathic medicines used to be made, and took pictures of the beautiful oak cabinets:

David and I got moulding that was similar to this.  He assembled it and and I painted it to look like this.  The color in the photo is a little off because of the fluorescent lighting.

Last Friday, David affixed the plywood panel on which I would be painting onto a solid frame, which we mounted directly onto the wall in the store.

Once that had been done, we attached the moulding to the plywood, to complete the "door" effect.

  This past weekend was the Apple Butter Festival in Berkeley Springs, so in order to get a parking space we arrived early.   I set up and started working at about 11 AM.

Tom, the owner of Portals, had chosen the Bubble Nebula to go into this first portal.   We found a photograph similar to this one in an issue of Beautiful Universe.


So here goes...I set this goal for myself without telling Tom what I had in mind.  I'll be honest with you:  I asked myself more than once what the heck I had been thinking.

I had to keep reminding myself that I had customers who called me the "Queen of Starfields".  Of course I could do this!!!

12:15 PM

3PM
There was a point at which I really thought I had lost my touch.  It's a lot to ask of oneself to paint, not only in public, but also under the clock.  I love painting in public:  I like talking to people and explaining how I do what I do.  But there is always a fear that I will blow the process completely, forget how to paint or how to render clouds and stars...you know.
Finally I hit my stride!

4:15 PM

The finished product!  6:30 PM

I'm sorry that the photo of the finished piece isn't better but I hope to get a photographer in to try to do a better job with the lighting.  So there I was, at 6:30 PM, with a finished mural and no brain cells left!

Oh, and a stiff neck...

Blessed Rain

Hemlock Hole, April 2010

All summer, the water level in Sideling Hill Creek has been creeping down.  This is in accordance with the creek's annual cycle, which starts with the spring floods and ends with the winter freeze.  This year started out like the others I have seen at Four Quarters Farm:  in April, frigid water rushed past us as we rebuilt the steps to Hemlock Hole, deep enough that canoeists could navigate the rapids.

By July, the water level had dropped significantly:  you have seen my photographs of the dry creek bed as I took advantage of the lack of water to explore the geology of the Land.  The flow of the creek was reduced to a trickle, rendering Hemlock Hole a foul, stagnant pool; by the middle of September even a swim in Stoneledge Hole left me smelling like a pond.  

Emily's Photo of the Dry Creek Bed
24 September 2010

You know you're really connected to a place when you welcome the news of a huge rain storm by rushing out to your campsite a day early so that you can be there to witness it.  I had enjoyed exploring the areas of the creek that had previously been unaccessible, but the Land ached for the renewal that could only be brought by rain.  

The rain started a little later than predicted, which provided me with the time I needed to install the wood stove into our new tent, bring in wood, batten down the hatches, and enjoy dinner at the Farmhouse.  While the first droplets struck the tent, I fired up the wood stove, lit my lanterns, and settled in for the duration.  

I spent Thursday in my tent, dry, warm and happily painting.  Periodically my curiosity would get the better of me and I would venture out to see how the creek was faring--and get really, really wet.

The transformation was gradual.  At first the creek looked mostly unchanged; then a trickle of water began to flow in the area we had tried to clear back in July.  But Friday morning I walked out to Hemlock Hole and heard a sound I had not heard since the Spring:  running water.

Running water!  I sat on the bench above the water and closed my eyes.  I had not realized how I had missed that sound, how its absence had left a void in my summertime experience.  

The Same Portion of the Creek
as Above,  1 October 2010

It gave me hope.

The Same Portion of Hemlock Hole
from the April Photo
 30 September 2010
No Canoes Here

Hope is important to me in the autumn, a time of year that I anticipate with both dread and eagerness.  While I love its clear, crisp days and cooler nights, the beautiful leaves, the smell of apples and the sight of fields dotted with pumpkins, I have not looked forward to winter since I was in grade school.  Snow is pretty, but I do not like shoveling or driving in it.  I'm not a fan of walking the dogs in 90 degree heat, but I'll take that over walking them in 34 degree slush.  (Incidentally, the dogs don't care!)  Long about February, my husband starts desperately looking for someplace warm and sunny to take me before I implode.  By late March I am watching the long range forecasts, and the moment I see a promising stretch of weather, I am on the road to Four Quarters to set up my campsite, and when I arrive out there I will hear the rushing water of the creek speaking to me of the spring floods.

Same View as Above
1 October 2010

And here I was, in early October, hearing those waters speaking to me of renewal from the drought and reminding me that the cycle is endless.  The creek will be there waiting for me when I return in the spring.  

Though the steps you saw us building at the top of the page probably won't be...as Orren gruffly says, "The creek is the creek."

I wouldn't have it any other way.