Masks
After more than a decade of creating with glass in many forms and shapes, Don began to explore new ways of working with it to create glass sculptures. This time he used metal mesh and sheet, copper strands, threads, and hammered pieces to make masks that glass would be blown into to form heads around them. He pieced together each mask by hand. Shaping faces and skull armatures that would provide direction for the hot glass as it expanded around them, often pulling, expanding, and sometimes encasing their forms. Fully aware of the significance of masks across cultures and time, Don contributed his own expression to the symbol in this new way.
As Don described them: “A mask, prior to blowing, is an interesting object and yet something is missing. In a scalding hot moment of metamorphosis the molten glass pumps life into it. Metal and glass are galvanized into a new form of bulging eyes and glistening teeth, of muscle, bone, sinew and spirit.” –D.A.S.
