Photography, Judy Leventhal
By invitation from California State Park Ranger Mark Faull, a series of masks I created, inspired by Red Rock Canyon, were installed at the Visitor’s Center in Winter/Spring 1997. Sculptural forms on the crown of each mask reflect my impressions of the bold, rugged cliff formations in Red Rock Canyon. The exhibit touched over 7,000 visitors, enhancing and expanding their appreciation of these canyon lands.
Following this exhibit, the children’s mask making art program attracted the attention of the Natural Resources Partnership for Youth Achievement (NRPYA), a program of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Natural Resources Conservation Service, providing education and career awareness for inner city youth. As a teaching artist with a background in social work, I was invited to participate as a collaborative partner with NRPYA. From 1997 through 2004, Masks: The World in Me art education program was presented in numerous Los Angeles Unified School District math and science classrooms, at the 3rd, 6th, and 10th grade levels. Then and now the program encourages students to explore mask making as a way to understand how our communities are an integral part of the earth’s ecosystems. The students’ masks and personal statements are creative expressions of their relationship with the environment.
In 1999, I organized an exhibition of sixty eight students’ masks at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. The exhibit reached 89,000 visitors over its four months of installation. A selection of students’ masks and personal statements may be viewed on a permanent web page . Click on each mask to view students’ personal statements.
As a contemporary art form, masks embody moments in time for theircreators, blending past experience, current events and dreams for the future. When the mask makers are children, the images that emerge which transcend everyday words and thoughts are often heartfelt and sometimes quite surprising. For a child the act of fashioning a mask can be an introduction to the creative process engaged in by artists everywhere. Judy Leventhal Terra Magazine 1999 Natural History Musuem Los Angeles County