In fact, float riders are required to wear masks by law. On Fat Tuesday, everyone is free to wear masks, adding to the excitement and magic of celebrations throughout the city. When it became obvious to everyone that going forth with our usual something Mardi Gras parades in …. Join Our Newsletter.
Her work can be found on various websites. She has a small-business background and experience as a layout and graphics designer for Web and book projects. About Mardi Gras Masks.
Traditional Clothing of Cuban Women. Travel Tips. Louise Balle, Leaf Group. Ceramic Female Face Masks Female face masks that make wearers look like porcelain dolls are very popular at Mardi Gras. Jester and Comedy Face Masks The expressions on Mardi Gras masks are very important, which is why jester and comedy masks are popular. Some mask makers, however, are content with the new space or even prefer it.
Certainly the Mask Market has continued to attract not only local mask makers but also those from other places. Diane Trapp, of Portland, Oregon, for example, has come for eighteen years, Portland like New Orleans being a mask making center.
Roxburgh, who first came to the Mask Market in or , came to masks from her involvement in the arts; looking for a focus to her artistic endeavors she noticed the use of masks in the theatre and feels that masks brought a lot of her interests together.
She thinks that the masks she sells in New Orleans in she sold most of the masks she brought to the Market, as did many of the other mask makers are used for costuming, although some collectors also buy. Ann Street figure 7 , a shop which is not owned by a mask maker but sells those made by a number of people, and report that there is one store in Portland devoted to selling masks. The Mardi Gras Mask Market, then, has been a unique institution, a quite specialized crafts fair where a product important to the New Orleans consciousness is highlighted once a year.
That product, masks, plays an important role in the festival complex, Carnival, at the center of much New Orleans life. Although the masks worn at Mardi Gras and the use of masks is a somewhat selective one may be acquired through various sources, the Mask Market and the mask makers who participate are one such source and an important one, at least for those who value fine artistry in the masks they wear or collect or display.
Because Carnival has become emblematic of New Orleans, tourists may also purchase masks, whether those finely made or those more cheaply mass produced, from various sources, including French Quarter shops, but because many visitors come to New Orleans at Mardi Gras time, the Mask Market provides a source for their purchases and also provides a singular event showcasing an aspect of the Mardi Gras celebration.
In a recent photo essay John Magill calls attention to the fact that at one time those who attended Mardi Gras parades "dressed up.
The popularity of costuming has varied over the years, waxing and waning. Louisiana writer Lyle Saxon, who directed the folklore-centered Louisiana Writers' Project during the Depression years, tried to revive interest in Mardi Gras costuming in those same s, believing that many of those who attended as street revelers had by that time lost interest in costumes.
Saxon wrote: "I like everything about Carnival. Whether by "the mask," he meant literally the wearing of a mask or merely costuming in general is unclear, probably the latter. The photographs in Magill, from the archives of the Historic New Orleans Collection, show costumed revelers over a period of time; many have their faces covered by masks, some do not. A recent J. Peterman mail order catalog, offering "Carnival in Venice" masks for sale, makes the point: "When people put on masks.
Mardi Gras purists are forever pointing out that Mardi Gras is a single day, the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, whereas the related festivities preceding the day, though sometimes loosely referred to as the "Mardi Gras season," are properly called Carnival. After his death Stark's friends commemorated his life with a party at Clevenger's celebrated restaurant, the Upperline. In fact it may never have been very active. Current mask makers do not remember the Guild as having done very much. Roshto 44 also includes a photograph of a wire screen mask from Belize, and wire screen masks are also used in Hatillo, Puerto Rico, in festivities which actually take place during the Christmas season, and elsewhere in the Caribbean for John Canoe festivities.
Roshto notes that wire masks made commercially in Europe were also widely sold in the later nineteenth century, and suggests that commercially made masks could have inspired home-made ones.
In Puerto Rico, the masks are generally made by the participants although costumes are made by seamstresses, whose work is given considerable attention and for whom there are costume competitions. It may be that these uses of screen represent polygenesis, wire screen as a material simply having become available at certain times it was invented in the s , and having had appeal as providing a vented material suitable for activity in warm climates as well as a surface paintable to provide disguise the Baltimore tradition of painting window and door screens has received concerted attention; this usage is not, of course, meant to provide disguise but does indicate how wire screen provides a paintable surface; see Eff [].
There may, however, be a pan-Caribbean tradition of screen masks with one area having influenced development in others; certainly the Belizean mask Roshto illustrates looks quite similar to Cajun masks, although he points out some differences. Why Portland should be a mask making center is an interesting question, as, unlike New Orleans, the city does not celebrate Carnival. Possibly this is so simply because Portland has attracted a number of artists at one time certainly it was an inexpensive place to live and that has inevitably meant at least a few mask makers, especially because of the vitality of local theatre and particularly puppetry.
Diane Trapp suggests that the mask traditions of Native Americans in the Pacific Northwest may also have influenced interest in mask making on the part of others. In addition to the people noted in Sources with whom I conducted short interviews, I talked informally with a number of mask makers at the Mask Market, and Carl Trapani, Diane Trapp, and Ann Guccione were kind enough to contribute information and comments by e-mail.
My thanks to all these individuals for their assistance. Ancelet, Barry. Photo essay by James Edmunds. Eff, Elaine. Lindahl, Carl, and Carolyn Ware. Cajun Mardi Gras Masks.
Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. Magill, John. Capturing Carnival: Images of Carnival History. New Orleans February: Roshto, Ronnie. Louisiana Folklore Miscellany 7 : Ware, Carolyn E. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press. Frank de Caro is a folklorist in New Orleans. This article first appeared in the Louisiana Folklore Miscellany , Volume 21, Contains photos. Mardi Gras decorations on a New Orleans house.
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