Everyone asks me the same question: How did you end up making masks?

Let me tell you:

I have a strong background in theater, and ended up spending a lot of time in my late teens and early twenties working building props, masks, puppets, and scenery pieces for a local childrens theater. I’ve made a bison head with five foot long horns, giant bugs and an elephant the size of a pony… and as much as I loved making art on such a grand scale, my favorite has always been masks.

In 2007, I got married and my husband and I had a masquerade wedding. When buying our masks, I was awed by the work that was available out there- from the elegant fantasy work in leather to the traditional papier mache masks of the Venetian masters. It was then that I decided that was the permanent direction I wanted to take my art.

I started making my own papier mache masks with a decidedly muppet-esque flair. Then I was contacted by a poi spinner who needed a mask with some very odd specifications, the biggest one being that he needed it to be fireproof.

I had always wanted an excuse to try working with molded leather, so I was excited for the opportunity to try it, and once I put my hands to the leather I knew for sure I had found my medium.

Amanda Leetch

Shira Lipkin and I collaborated on this project, working together to record the story in as many different forms as possible: audio on cassette tape and CD, video on DVD, handwritten on parchment, computer printed on paper. I then shattered the disks, tore the paper, and cut the tape into small fragments and used one fragment from each medium in this piece, to reflect the story’s theme of data loss and recovery.

Kythryne Aisling

Upon reading Valentines, I wondered what it would be like to have to carry and write your entire life. I translated that feeling into a charm necklace which can actually serve as a necklace, belt, or even a bracelet depending on how you wrap it. I wanted to make a piece that was functional, beautiful and useful. Something that the new owner would be able to add to with their own story as well as the story of the heroine. One of my favorite parts about this necklace is the message bottles. Ways to carry slips of paper and notes. These bottles can be left as is, or filled with your own memories. A lot of these charms were found objects in and around Hollywood, CA.

Jonaya Kemper

These shell beads I hunted down just for this story — I wanted something paperlike as well as just a nice bead, something that could be written on. The writing, glazed black ink (well-baked and safe for nearly anything you could do to it, this writing will not fade from memory) are excerpts from the story, of the narrator’s own musings: “movements a careful ballet of hot espresso and soup and witty banter” strung around the necklace, and “leather-bound journals with elegant heavy pens” around the wrist. The pendant is for Valentine(s): what image does his name inspire if not a heart? The black beads I chose for their resemblance to stray blots of ink, scattered from hasty scribblings.

Sarah B. Evans

For a tiny bit of introduction, I’m a freelance writer with a painting and crafting habit. I’ve been working with a lot of collage art lately, but Shira Lipkin’s story “Valentines” inspired these four pieces with all original components. The series of four bookmarks is called [redacted]. Lipkin’s story features a narrator desperately trying to catalogue information and my art centers around that idea, as well. I really connected with this theme; in our modern existence, we’re overwhelmed with information every waking moment and we’re constantly logging and processing it. In the bookmarks, the writing comes straight from my journal the day I put myself into the character’s shoes. The finished product represents the problems with memory Lipkin’s narrator struggles with and how both data and recollection can have a shattering effect on one’s identity.

Kristin Ross

When I read Shira’s story “Valentines” the image that immediately struck me was at the end, with the paper flying around the room in snowy drifts. I wanted to find a way to keep the protagonist’s observations together for her, and because I tend to think in fiber, yarn suggested itself to me. The more I thought about it the more I realized that this yarn had three sections, one for each of the Valentines, and from there I saw that the foods eaten at each place could be represented by the colors of the fiber. I gathered several different types of fiber, shredded several copies of the story, and carded them all together on a borrowed drum carder. I also hand wrote several of the lines from the notebook in the story and worked out how to spin these lengths of paper into and around the yarn. In a strange bit of synchronicity, the paper I chose for this piece of the yarn came from Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, which, Shira informed me, is strange, because she actually meant for the story to be set in Vegas, but decided not to make it obvious in the text. When I spun the yarn (single ply) bits of the story would fall and flutter and fly around my wheel, leaving my work space every bit as paper-covered as the character’s apartment at the end of the story. This yarn will change as you use it or wear it; the paper is going to continue to fall out a little at a time, much like memories.

Emily Wagner

‘Visual Fiction’ or ‘The Metamorphosis of Vision’ evolved from a journal sketch in which I set down concepts and wrote titles of the pieces that would appear in my exhibit. These titles were for both existing works and new ones that I would create. The drawing reflects my creative process and its consequences. When I read Shira’s story, this image, the title piece of my 1986 solo exhibition at The Pittsburgh Center for the Arts immediately came to mind. The original drawing was scanned and extracted from a composition that included hand calligraphy. It was then set into a vertical format for maximum visual effect. ‘Visual Fiction’ or ‘The Metamorphosis of Vision’ evolved from a journal sketch in which I set down concepts and wrote titles of the pieces that would appear in my exhibit. These titles were for both existing works and new ones that I would create. The drawing reflects my creative process and its consequences.

Ilene Winn-Lederer

I have always loved old things, lost or serendipitously found objects, keys and doorways and passages. I earned degrees in computer science and medieval studies; both data and history are important to me. So is memory, and the nature of who we are.

I have dabbled in a host of media and crafts — stained glass, collage, songwriting, off-loom bead weaving — but have been captivated by wire work for the last two years. My main focus is wire wrapping antique keys, decorating them with watch gears, glass leaves, crystals and charms and other bits and pieces. My keys are often a fusion of stylized natural and mechanical forms, as if a bit of machinery were animated by a spirit of growth, and unfurled its own little leaves.

My pieces often have stories reaching backwards in time, through the past history and the associations of the objects I use. This piece reaches forward as well. I marked the glass chips wrapped onto the key with phrases written down by the narrator in Shira Lipkin’s story Valentines, but not all the chips were attached to the key. A handful remain lost, unmoored. These fragments are included with the auctioned pendant, but what is done with them is up to the recipient. Make them into matching earrings. Give them away. Hide them. Bury them. Continue the story of these shards of data.

Kendra Tornheim

My inspiration for this necklace:

Information is sacred. We are collections of information.

I observe. I record. And I like to figure out what people are by examining what they’re made of.

Valentine…

his eyes are seaglass-blue.

I do not remember things everyone remembers. And I need to. In order to build a self I need a foundation. I have to write more. I have to make sense of things.

I think the universe or the multiverse or whatever has this stopgap for data loss, and I think the human brain does pattern-patching on a subconscious level – finding the things that match you and filling holes with them.

With enough data, maybe I can figure out the world.

I write. Everything.

Susan Saltzman