Artist's Statement:
For this project, I wanted to keep things simple. In sorting through the pile of junk paper on my desk, I realized that I could separate the papers into different social spheres--school, church, and dance. Each social sphere represented a different part of me, or a different "mask" that I put on each day. I like the idea of creating physical masks to represent people's personas, and decided that the level of decoration would represent how false a sense of self they are likely to show a particular social sphere. In the end, the masks ended up being almost the same in level of decoration, which shows my realization that in changing even just a small part of your personality in identity in order to fit in, you end up changing your entire sense of self. Finally, the journal face represents people at their core. Undecorated and unadorned, I modeled the journal mask off my own face, so it has all the imperfections that I have. Nothing is hidden. The journal pages contain entries that highlight the confusion and hurt and depression that I worked so hard to cover up for over a year. No more hiding, no more masquerade.
