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Hi,
I think it\'s really great that you are bringing together all mask makers! I do have a question that I hope you could answer for me: Do you think it is possible to make a living buy making masks and not have it as just a hobby? Im 22 and have a 2 year degree in SPFX. I am passionate about making latex mask and I just want to know if there is a big enough market for it? Thanks for your help and keep up the good work! Natalie
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 Hi Natalie - I have been waiting for the latex maskmakers to speak up - maybe they will. My answer would yes! Since you are passionate about it, I am sure it will work out for you. In my experience that is the most important thing. In my small country - Denmark - there are several latex artist making a living. Partly producing - partly teaching.
As we observe it here from Mask Makers Web it seems like the demand for talented latex artists is growing. More and more studios / companies seem to pop up.
Why don't you look for latex maskmakers / companies here or elsewhere on the internet and ask directly what they think, and how to start... there are many to be found. Sincerely Susan - Mask Makers Web
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Hi Natalie,
Yes, I think it is possible to make a living making masks - or, as Susan suggests with just about anything that you are passionate about! I also believe that passion is the key. Somehow, passion creates a drive that cannot be suppressed. You may not become rich (monetarily), but you will surely be happy if you are doing something you love. Is there any other way?
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Yes.....with a lot of passion, hardwork, business training and some good luck and
"connections".....I have, at various times in my life as a maskmaker (over the past 35 years
been fortunate enough to make a "living" doing what I love best.
I have been able to do this witha combination of services (many, related to masks in some way.....), etc, which includes a
combination of creating
masks for theatre, film and/or video, as well as for some commercial uses, like for advertising
purposes........as well as combining the theme of 'masks' into my sculpture and "art masks" for showing in
art galleries, entering exhibitions and competitions (to build up my 'credibility'), also creating a "line" of masks made with the use of molds and casting to sell affordable masks that a sales rep brings in orders from trade shows and small gift-type shops and small galleries (to bring in some of that 'regular' cash to pay bills.....)
and teaching mask making to all levels of students from ages 8 to 80, from kindergarten to college level and at senior centers. The business aspect of making a living doing just about "anything" requires developing
good business practices, learning about PR, pricing your work......photographing your work......
this is not meant to be 'discouraging"........but to emphasize that all the pragmatic and
practical aspects of running a business are no different in maskmaking than anything else. Your unique ideas and creative drive are a unique element that has a potential market.....if you are willing to take the "art means business" type of workshops (Business skills are essential!)......develop some marketing skills and so forth, you are indeed able to make a living with masks, and even though many of those valuable "business" tools are often
contrary to the 'creative process', (creatie types always complain about that!!!!) but to succeed, you need to have them work together for you. You will notice that most successful artists have either developed those skills themselves, or have business managers or other benovelent types who take care of the mundane for them. ha Many a creative sole becomes disallussioned by the reality of making a living in the 'creative world'........I have interviewed over 100 artists over the past 15 years (for a local newspaper) and although they came from various backgrounds, experiences, education, etc..........the one thing they all had in common, when I asked them the key to their success, is that "you should NEVER give up"........even in the most dismal of times.........and I have found over the past 35 years, that it has proven to be true, at least for me, and I am now having an easier time making a living with my work( at age 60) than ever before (without having to be RICH & FAMOUS)........just to be able to make a living wage doing what one loves most........I am blessed and extremely lucky to be able to make a living doing what I love best!! Good luck to you. Juanita Wolff
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Hi Juanita - Thank you for a wise and engaged answer to Natalie.. I read it with great interest and was very pleased to find out,that what you say about living as an artist / maskmaker - comes close to what I am only slowly beginning to realize after 4 years of concentrating solely on masks.Your comments might speed things up a bit.
" The never give up " part has been / is an important mantra in my life too.
I can just manage making a mask- living finacially now. By doing many different things - and I also create things solely for the commercial purpose like : Small Theater puppets that Customers use as decoration and small affordable "Guiding Masks with a story to go with it "o.a. I have learned that doing these "commercial" works, has a PR effect for my "real maskwork". And it sometimes opens up doors I would never have spotted myself...The customers gives me new ideas.
The fear of masks exists in Denmark. I realized a few years back, that I had to be aware of that in my work, if I wanted to make a living of it.. So I Listened carefully to people reacting to my masks here, and therefore created many mask that were so " friendly", that they didn't scare people away ..This has worked very well for me - because I can trigger people's curiousity this way - and open some eyes here and there for the magic of masks - with workshop jobs and sale to follow, and an nice openess to my other kind of maskwork: The " Real Maskwork".. I accept almost all offers I get to exhibit - although every exhibition, small or big, is hard work and I can never be sure to get any income at all from it...I consider it to be my "CV" work + it has an advertising effect.
What I still find difficult to figure out is a reasonable, workable prizing and the "hard core advertising" I am working on that.
In this country it is hard for people to pay for Paper Mache, which is my material. Paper Mache is not used very much here - and it is " Kids stuff only". It gives me extra work to show people that paper mache can be high quality. That is a pioneer - job.
( Here leather and latex and wood artist are "finer". ) But I see now that it can work. I taught my techniques to many people now, and I am starting to get positive responses from f.ex teachers, who tell me they have now started using paper mache again in their work using " my way ". This is an effect of the " never - give-up" way of thinking..
I value your comments. Thanks Susan
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Hey Susan!!! One of the most wonderful things about 'communicating' with other artists (especially maskmakers!) is that it really helps to reaffirm the confidence and direction one needs to keep on going! ha. I mean, knowing that others are experiencing the same set of circumstances, wherever they are on this planet, is very reassuring! That we're not alone is encouraging. I know what you mean about the general public's reaction to "papier mache".......most thinking that it is something they have done in elementary school, wrapping gooey newspaper around a balloon........they usually say, "oh yes, I know about papier mache, we used to do it when I was a child!". I have been hearing this for so long, and l ike you, have seen it as an educational challange to demonstrate to others how little they really know about the potential of "papier mache" as an art material. I tell them that what they remember doing in the 1st grade was just the very beginning of learning about potentials of papier mache. I have a good story to tell you about when I went to the university to study art at the age of 40 (had been self-taught up to then) and had almost all of the 'professors" (experts on art....ha.....excuse my contempt!).......told me that "papier mache" wasn't a serious medium to be considered for anything sculptural. While I argued that there were 'drawings on paper' of famous artists (Michaelangelo, for instance) that were definately used as examples of 'real' art. Well, they'd say, that's 2-D, 3-D HAS TO BE a permanent material, like rock, or plaster, or stone, bronze.....etc.... in any case, while I was fortunate enough to go to college with the aid of grants from the government for what they called, "a program for re-entry women" in the late 1970's, women, who like me had never had a formal college education until then, although most were working class and "single mom" women.......I became challanged, at my age (40), to prove to the art department that they had 'missed' something......and that, since they couldn't really show me the "rule book" disallowing paper as a medium, I was going to show them how wrong they were. I concentrated on sculpture and all the related fields and learned a lot of very valuable skills, including mold making, casting, design, worked with bronze, stone, cement, wood, clay and all they had to offer........and in the last couple of years, using my mold making skills, I started to 'cast' paper into 3-D molds and created many 'paper sculptures'. I had the idea to make them look like "permanent material' sculptures by treating the surfaces so that they'd l ook like metal, stone, wood, etc and proceeded to complete many of them for my "senior thesis" to graduate with a bachelors degree in sculpture. As an art student, we had to put together an exhibition of our work to be "evaluated" by art faculty at the University of California, who would grade us as a final step towards completing the requirements of graduation. A couple of the professors walked into the gallery, took a look and said to me, "Your sculpture is very interesting......amd they'd take a closer look and were perplexed and ask what kind of stone........or metal I was using? I said, it's not sculpture.....it's made from paper........and none of them ever proceeded to say anything else.......one told me he didn't like being 'fooled'. So.....I did accomplish what I had set out to do......and yet, they've never given me any credit for it. Except to 'pass' my exhibition so that I could earn my degree. Over the past 20 years, I hae seen that paper (so to speak) has become more of a serious material in the "fine art world" and I've seen huge and dramatic pieces in museums that one would never have seen back then! For me, I continue to challance the general public's theory........I've made a 12 foot tall mask out of papier mache,life-sized puppets, some furniture (as the italians are famous for the complex and beautiful papier mache furniture and figurative art they make, for instance) In Mexico, you would be amazed at the complexity the work made of papier mache can take.............and the most wonderful part of the material of papier mache, is that it is recycling and reusing a valuable material and turning into an art form!!! Every country on this planet has an over-abundance of paper to recycle! Anyhow....I am passionate about the use of paper as you can see. I also work a lot with ceramic sculptures and totems for outdoor use as well as the papier mache sculptures for indoors and papier mache masks for perfrmances. And most visitors to our gallery are more likely to consider the ceramic work more serious than the paper, although when they see a paper sculpture that looks like a bronze.....it does make then "think and question"...........and that is a good thing..........I am always happy to hear of another artist who has seen how valuable a materail there is in paper!! Keep up the good work. Juanita Wolff
wmstudio@flash.net
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!!! Great stories...Thank you very much ! Yes - Let?s all keep on working and supporting eachother... Susan
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Hello Susan & Everyone!! In response to Natalie's question, absolutely! Making a living, yes. The U.S., Europe, it is all relative. That is, relative to the cost of living, the economy, support for the arts, etc. However, a good business sense is a must and being passionate about your work is vital. Know your market. Research, inquire, participate and reap the rewards. Work within your means and do not overextend yourself. Tips:
1. Have working capital and a budget for every expense.
2. Network with others in your field or similar fields.
3. Advertise within your means.
4. Show your work at market, festivals, internet or other means.
5. Don't rush.
6. Establish visibility within a community.
7. Target a specific market (i.e., art, entertainment, theatre, etc.)
8. Determine whether you want to wholesale, retail or distribute.
9. Keep extremely good accounting methods.
10. Do not burn yourself out. It takes the fun out of it. Those of us who have been doing this have learned from experience. Some of us may have taken longer to reach our goals, while it comes more naturally to others. If you enjoy it, it will be more gratifying. Rozani
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Hello everyone, First of all being new to this site I am thrilled with it. I feel like it contains a real community, and with that I mean a group of enthousiast individuals that are willing to SHARE in the name of the love of creation. I am a little bit surprised to hear the "public's' despise for paper-mache you are talking about. My teachers, always encouraged the use of paper mache and the Costume store I used to manage untill a few months ago, always carried quite a few paper mache masks for sale and allthough the public wasn't maybe always aware of the fact that it was paper mache; always loved those masks for their light weight.
When I recently started making masks again, I opted for paper-mache for alot of reasons, that might be interresting to some of you:
- because of my sales-experience. The common mask-purchaser (i.e. people who just want to wear the mask once or twice to go to a Halloween party or a Costume ball) seeks mostly for something comfortable and practical!!
Esthetics come next, and Meaning comes last.
I am of course making generalizations, but those factors did determine about 70% of the mask sales. And some of the really beautifull handcrafted plaster masks were unsellable because to heavy and to fragile in appearance.
-my personnal love for paper mache is founded on it's extreme flexibility, the ways and means are so vaste, I use old newspapers, paper bags, wrapping papers, wallpaper glue, white school glue, strips of paper, paper musch etc.. i mold, layer and wrap and fold.
-and i must admit that I feel very good about the ecological aspect of paper mache, since all the paper I use is recupperated! And like you all I love the perplexe look on people's faces when I answer to them asking me what I made the masks out of with "old newspapers!" So yes this was my ode to paper mache and greeting to all of you mask-lover and makers. Best ~E
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Hi everybody.
Its great to see the forum working again with a lot of good exchange of opinions and support. I agree absolutly with all of you specially in what Susan calls Passion for your work. I have that experience myself, if you keep truth to your dream and dont give up you?ll make it at last. I work as a maskmaker, maskteacher and director and manage to make a living of it. But as Juanita said, for me too it took many years not giving up. Still I cannot say I have a secure future making masks but it has gone well and work keeps comming my way. So, whatever happens, dont give up!
Love
Augusto.
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