HAND SEWN MASKS by Kathrine Page

“In 2019, I invited John Singletary to display his multimedia, collaborative work in an exhibition at The Delaware Contemporary. The large-scale black and white photographs, displayed on high-tech OLED monitors, invoked the Vedic concept of unbroken sound. Figures in elaborate costumes, and dramatic make-up and masks, are captured in various poses and stages of dance. Singletary manipulated the images into sophisticated arrangements to exemplify the unbroken chain of movement in the figures, where ultimately chaos gives way to visual harmony. I created this mask using very low technology: a 1953 Singer sewing machine and a collaboration of remnants. The black and white fabric came from Ghana; the crocheted netting came from Fabric Row in Philadelphia, and the buttons came from my husband’s great aunt Dorothy, a sophisticated New York City socialite. I arranged and rearranged the pieces to mimic an unbroken sense of movement, while underscoring the visual color harmony of basic black and white.”

MATERIALS: 100% cotton, Pellon interfacing, cotton-polyester crochet, polyester ribbon, and buttons