GONG HI FA CHOY! Happy Chinese New Year. The year of the dragon. An auspicious year- so a good time to start small business, get hitched, and start popping out those babies. Bali is busy with tourists as many of the neighbouring countries have long weekends to celebrate. The American and Aussie tourists roll their eyes when they see bus loads of Chinese people, you hear comments like "Oh, there are so many of them". Jesus, they are so blind to the corruption they themselves are feeding into the culture and ecology of this place (smells like roses, etc etc). It seems the fear of the 'yellow terror' still lives on.
Anyway.
Pak Gusto brought his masks to class again yesterday, this time bringing the prime minister mask he dances in during ceremonies. It is fierce! Less stylised, more depth...
Here are three of the same mask (I guess the prime minister is a Balinese architype, so there is room for personal interpretation within the parameters of the character), the two on the left carved by Gusto, on the right by Nyoman. The face is often modelled off people the carver will know (their own face, or a current politician)...
I finally bought one off Nyoman, so now I can practice in mask (and begin to let the energy and character of the mask breath into the movements).
And here are the photos of mine...
And with the red gums...
And my new project! Can you guess what it's gonna be?
P.s. It's not a storm trooper (although the thought crossed my mind).
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