Janette Gerber
"when faces called flowers "
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| (Photos by Patrick Fraser) |
“when faces called flowers float out of the ground” is the title of one of my favorite E. E. Cummings poems. This poem has twice inspired me: once for a college typography class for which I created an illustrated book version of the poem using press type, now as inspiration for my mask. E.E. Cummings used type and grammar in non-traditional ways to express his thoughts and encourage the reader to ponder his work as well as the meaning of life.
It had been suggested to me that I use my mask to help people understand concussion recovery. Concussion is an internal invisible injury that is difficult to illustrate graphically and difficult to heal from; at times, I wished that I had a bandage on my head. I made some sketches with cartoon-like bubbles of symptoms of concussion but was uninspired. I needed something positive; what is more positive than flowers floating out of the spring soil? Instead of creating a monument to concussion, I found that little hot pink book I had created years earlier, read the poem, and was re-inspired by a passage that reads, “when more than was lost has been found has been found,” which inspired me to create a mask that illustrates my quest to transcend.
My mask is a combination of several of the thousands of flower photos I have taken. The Dahlias are printed on cloth, painted with clear matte medium, cut out and assembled. The mirror on the back is for your reflection.