My plan this year was to focus on cultural art and how everyday simple things, with time, become artifacts and teach us about the lives of the people that created them. I initially decided to choose pottery because of its everyday practical use and the rich history that connects cultures from ancient times to present day. My family and I were going to be spending a month in Mexico and it seemed like a good opportunity to learn about the influence of the Aztec and Mayan people as we studied pottery.
My husband, my son and I traveled by car to the tip of Baja California, took the ferry across to Mazatlan and traveled further south through Guadalajara to the town of Lake Chapala where we stayed for two weeks. We took the inland route to return. Along the way we visited small towns and villages, lots of ruins and museums, looked in small shops and stopped at the vendors carts. Everywhere we went there were masks. There were masks of carved wood, clay, beads, paper-mache, mosaic, metal, animal skins and bones, shells and stones. There were artists in every part of Mexico making beautiful, extraordinary masks. It was then that I decided to study the use of masks in the cultures of Mexico and our own.
Prior to beginning the mask project I asked the children to do research about masks and bring it back to class to share for a class discussion. They brought in information about the use of masks in cultures and traditions from all over the world and this began a more global look at the role masks play, how they are used and how much we all have in common as well as how each culture is unique. The kindergarten and first grade students painted and decorated paper-mache masks and 2nd through 5th grade made clay forms which they glazed and adorned with feathers, beads fabric, shells, stones and other objects.
Our mask exhibit featured a huge installation of masks, photos of the mask-making process, and children’s writing about the use and role of masks in many cultures.
