A Death Mask For Grandpa Jones

I've been holding back, but it's finally time for you to experience something traumatic.

I didn't want to start this blog on a negative note, because I already do that with two others, so instead I started off with two relatively cool masks, but now...now the time has come. The day of reckoning is upon us, and you will be judged accordingly to your sins. Hopefully they are not as severe as the very evident sins this ungodly thing has put upon the world.

There is a very strong unsettling vibe that comes with this photo. Take away the mask and let's just look at the surroundings instead, shall we? It appears to be sat upon a small metal device that I believe was made specifically for presenting this mask, which is weird enough, but then it's sitting on a table with the most bland tablecloth in existence, yet the background of this photo itself is almost grandparent like. The wallpaper, the giant cabinet full of old fine china, the willowy curtain in the side room there. This house absolutely screams "lived in by someone born in 1924." This is a grandparent house if I've ever seen one. What's even scarier than that is the likelihood that it ISN'T. Perhaps this is just some young persons house, and they have this taste, and they, presumably, made this mask?

 Have you guys ever heard of death masks? Allow our good friend Wikipedia to provide a description.

A death mask is a likeness (typically in wax or plaster cast) of a person's face after their death, usually made by taking a cast or impression from the corpse. Death masks may be mementos of the dead, or be used for creation of portraits. It is sometimes possible to identify portraits that have been painted from death masks, because of the characteristic slight distortions of the features caused by the weight of the plaster during the making of the mold. The main purpose of the death mask from the Middle Ages until the 19th century was to serve as a model for sculptors in creating statues and busts of the deceased person. Not until the 1800s did such masks become valued for themselves^.

And of course, they also point out that when taken from a living subject, a cast is called a "Life Mask" because, ya know, duh. But that's absolutely the vibe I'm getting from this thing. I feel like maybe this thing was someone's grandpa or father, or modeled after them? Maybe even someone's creepy uncle? There's so much about it that's unsettling, even without the weird grandparent house decor. Like, for example, this is obviously for wear and not show because the eyes have holes in them, meaning you're meant to be able to see out of it. It's smile is completely unnatural, and the enormous teeth don't help that, and the beard just seems to be drawn on haphazardly after the fact. Imagine this being someone's Halloween mask. Imagine walking around, either as a child or with your child because either age encountering this would be a terrifying ordeal, and just bumbling into this thing on the street, strapped to someone's head in lieu of their actual face. That's....god that's awful.

While I try to never make a point to make fun of other artists creations, because for anyone to make anything it must've meant a lot to them to begin with, I do feel like my words are rather justified when it comes to this sort of thing. There's just something so other worldly and unnatural about it, and I'm not so much making fun of it as I am just inquiring the creation of it; how, who, when, and most importantly, WHY.

Like all the masks that I've pulled to this blog thusfar, this one came from Ebay, which means someone was selling this thing. They still could be, I don't know. I didn't add Death Mask Grandpa to my watch list (though that is totally my new metal band name), so suffice to say I have not kept up with it. I could likely find it again, but I don't really want to, so. And yet...and yet there's something magnificent about him isn't there? There's something so utterly wholesome in its handmade craftsmanship that you simply can't help but admire. Some sort of old worldly charm. Perhaps it's just me and my penchant love for the absurd, but I can't help but want to see this guy hanging somewhere in a home next to some modern art, or classic art, ready to bewilder and delight those who see him.

Death Mask Grandpa, I salute you.

Your texture, your simultaneous emotionless yet overly emotional reactions, your penciled on eyebrows that every single girl does now except me apparently...you are beautiful because you're so fucking strange. There's beauty in the weird, and that's what I think is ultimately lost in the world of modern costuming/masks, especially when it comes to Halloween, but even just as a piece of art. There's nothing else quite like Death Mask Grandpa.

Nor should there be.