A few years ago my son Jake gave me a packet of Korean beauty masks for Christmas. I鈥檓 not sure why and I was afraid to ask. But I鈥檓 wearing a Gold Collagen Essence mask as I write this, hoping that, as the package promises, I鈥檒l emerge more beautiful in just fifteen minutes.
Hey, it could happen.
Masks are on my mind right now because one I created is on display at the Fort Collins Museum of Art, in their 20th annual mask fund-raiser. My mask is called 鈥淪hattered.鈥� It features a ceramic face covered with a mosaic of mirror shards, which is why I thought about calling it 鈥�10,000 years of bad luck.鈥� That鈥檚 the least I鈥檒l incur after shattering seven mirrors with a sledge hammer.
When I called it 鈥渟hattered,鈥� I was intentionally invoking the Rolling Stones song of the same name. The first time I heard 鈥淪hattered,鈥� I was pulling onto the Maine Turnpike two hours after my college graduation, with no idea where I鈥檇 go in life. And there was Mick Jagger rubbing it in: 鈥淟ook at me,鈥� he sang, 鈥淚'm in tatters /I've been shattered!鈥�
And he followed it up with a mocking 鈥淪ha-doo-beh!鈥�
If Mick was shattered, what hope did I have? No wonder my mask looks so worried.
Identity, whether concealed or revealed, is a fraught subject these days. It鈥檚 a luxury to pull on the same societal mask everyone else is wearing. But some of us don鈥檛 have that luxury. The most obvious battleground right now is over gender. Trans people鈥檚 self knowledge is cast aside, in favor of judgment by legislators who wouldn鈥檛 know empathy if it stepped on them.
But it鈥檚 not just a gender thing. I think of my dad, who wore his accountant mask for a lifetime of workdays, but wrote and performed in comedic plays on the side. There are legions of firefighter guitarists out there, and house-painter poets, and who knows, maybe even a bunch of empathetic legislators just itching for a chance to break free from red-blue gridlock, and live purple and proud. Fluidity鈥搊f gender, of career, of expression, of affection, of choice鈥搃s something to be embraced, because it can free all of us from boring old binary life.
Of course, even in the land of the free, it takes a lot of bravery to radiate who you are, or who you might be, if only you had permission. Well, get this: The only person you need permission from is yourself.
Which is one of the reasons it鈥檚 so provocative to tour the mask exhibition at the Fort Collins Museum of Art. It鈥檚 a gallery full of artists who asked and answered the question: What face do you want to show the world? When you walk into the gallery, you may think that you鈥檙e there looking at the masks, but in some sense, the masks and their creators are looking right back at you.
Linnae Holmes, a junior at Windsor Charter Academy, is a member of the school鈥檚 suicide prevention club, and contributed a mentally askew mask called 鈥淚鈥檓 Not as Put Together as You Think.鈥� Who among us is, Linnae? But my favorite was Nicole Coco Chenot鈥檚 鈥淣ew Moon,鈥� which features a face peering out from a woman鈥檚 uterus, with fallopian tubes draped on either side, like blue hair. Surely there鈥檚 a gynecologist's office in town that needs to put that one front and center.
Meanwhile, I just took my cosmetic mask off. I have to say, I do have a little glow. Masks conceal, but they also reveal. As Oscar Wilde said: 鈥淢an is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.鈥�
My mask and 270 other truth tellers are up for auction at the . Make a bid, and see what the mask you buy is trying to tell you.
