Clay Masks

The first time I'd heard of Julie Taymor was when I saw an exhibition of her work at the Wexner Center in Columbus, OH decades ago. Yes she's a theater person, but I've always loved the relationship between visual and performing arts,so  I showed my students  videos and a slide show of her amazing costumes from "The Lion King," It just so happens that the Chorus took a field trip to see "The Lion King" the week before so the timing of this lesson was perfect.  And then we saw her actual Scar and Mufasa masks at the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta,

My students each made sketches, newspaper forms, and then used clay slabs to create their own mask.  These are much too heavy to be worn, but holes were made on each side for wire, which makes it easy to hang on a wall. It was so gratifying to see them fired, glazed and displayed within two week's time.