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on March 24
lauren raine
Posted project update #12Closing with Gratitude and Encouragement!
"Myth comes alive as it enters the cauldron of evolution, drawing energy from the storytellers who shape it."
Elizabeth Fuller, The Independent Eye Theater
I want to thank all of you for contributing toward my Proposal - you have no idea how much encouragement you have given me! It was an experiment, and I did not imagine that so many wonderful people would be willing to support the project. Although the Kickstarter fundraiser hasn't been successful, the encouragement and connections I've made through this process has given me what I need to continue.
Please know that the collection will continue to grow, and I will continue to hold them as they evolve for the use of individuals and communities in the future. Should any of you have a story to tell with the masks, please feel free to contact me. If you still wish to contribute, you may send a check to my address below - and I will honor all the rewards posted in Kickstarter......just be sure to tell me what you would like me to send you in your letter, and where.
I'm also very happy to offer 1/2 price on any items in my Catalog (http://www.rainewalker.com/catalog.htm) to all Kickstarter funders in support of the Project, and also the ritual Performance that Macha NightMare and Collaborators will be developing with the masks in the future.
The Goddess is within all of us, inhabiting us and speaking through us with a thousand voices and a thousand faces. May She dance with you always!
Lauren Raine
4526 East 12th Street, Tucson, Arizona 85711
"Our flesh is simply our part of the dreaming body of the world.....and the persistence of the old stories is the continuance of a way of speaking that blesses the sentience of things, binding our thoughts back into the depths of an imagination much vaster than our own. To live in a storied world is to know that intelligence is not an exclusively human faculty, is rather a power of the animate earth itself, in which we humans, along with the hawks and the thrumming frogs, all participate."
David Abram, Wild Ethics.
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on March 15
lauren raine
Posted project update #119 days to go - will we make it? And a New Mask!
With nine days to go, we still need to raise about $850.00 to make our goal. I hope we do, and we're circulating the Proposal one last time. If any of you wonderful sponsors know of someone who might like to support this project, you can email them a link to the Proposal at http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/166451574/the-masks-of-the-goddess-mythic-masks-and-theatre.
But even if this Kickstarter Proposal isn't funded, I need to tell you that I've already received more than I asked for - support and encouragement from you, and from an amazing community of priestesses, mythologists, dancers, storytellers, and ritualists. That's the real currency I've been seeking, the feedback and inspiration that makes me want to go into the studio and make masks for collaborators, and the beauty they will make with them.
Funded or not, I'm going to continue to make these masks and I will hold them in trust for those who want to use them in the future (and I invite all of you to send me your stories and suggestions - I want to know what masks are needed as the collection grows. This is, and always has been, collaboration.)
Because of unfortunate space limitations, the Women and Mythology Conference http://womenandmythology.wordpress.com/ will not be able to host a full scale ritual as Macha planned. Instead, excerpts from the evolving ritual performance will be shared, and Macha and the group are developing ideas for a full scale event at a future venue. If we raise the funds here, at least $1,000.00 of them will go to the group to pay for a theatre or other site. I'm going to be on an artists panel at the Conference as well.
I finished a "Sea Goddess" mask..........don't really know who she is yet. And I share below the "Oya" mask again. Oya is a powerful ouruban Orisha representing the energies of the Winds and the tempests. She is a powerful agent to change, blowing away the old dead wood and old dead paradigms, and although this sometimes results in chaos, She is the force that makes way for the new ways, and new life. In some images she bears a machete or sword, clearing away a path for new growth. May Oya blow in the New!
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on March 5
lauren raine
Posted project update #1019 days to go.....$4771.00 raised!
Post CommentI'm so happy to see that I'm almost at the $5000.00 mark........and thanks especially to a relative who is so kindly backing me as well as all of you! I've created another new mask (photo below) - "Oya", West African Goddess of air, storms, and sometimes, the chaos and storm that occurs before a new beginning can come into being.
I want to say here that, no matter what happens with achieving my goal with Kickstarter or not, I'm so grateful to all of you for giving me this encouragement for this project.
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on March 2
lauren raine
Posted project update #9Pachamama Mask (almost) finished for May Performance
Post CommentWith 23 days to go, I'm 60% of the way there! But regardless, I'm rushing to finish up to 9 masks for the performance at the Women and Mythology Conference in May - at the end of the month I'll be doing the California Renaissance Faire, and life will be much more complicated.
Just wanted to share the latest, which the "mask council" that Macha has created is exploring presently with story and dance - this is "Pachamama". I made the mask very colorful, because I thought of the bright, indigenous colors of South America, and the native clothing the dancer will wear. One member of the group has suggested that the performer will hold a spindle, which is a common sight in Bolivia. She might offer "threads" to the audience, to share in the "spinning" of a new way of understanding our relationship to mother Earth.
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on February 29
lauren raine
Posted project update #8"Ice" Mask
Thanks once again for your support with this project, and feedback is always welcome! In fact, your feedback helps me tremendously to envision the masks.
This mask, which I'm adding to the new collection, was suggested by my collaborator Macha, and is potentially "Skadi" a Nordic goddess. I envision it with a white veil behind the performer, and white costume, but that will depend on what the story, and those who perform them, evolve in the future. My hope is that these masks will travel to many performers, and collect stories. What I was thinking about is the Arctic, the diminishing and breaking up of the glaciers (which is why her "crown" is made of white fragments).
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Anita Devi on February 29
I like this mask quite a bit. I imagine for this goddess the diminishing glaciers, and the arctic slowly melting away is quite painful to see.
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on February 24
lauren raine
Posted project update #7Masks in Progress!
Post CommentI just want to thank you again! The proposal has 30 days to go, and is now 38% funded - which makes me very hopeful that it will be realized.
I've been in the studio working on masks for the ritual, which will be held at the 2012 Women and Mythology Conference in San Francisco, produced and directed by Macha NightMare. Macha and I have collaborated in the past, and her knowledge about the subject, her ability to create a collaborative community, and her creativity are wonderful. I've got a variation on Pachemama in progress, and am working on a mask about the Arctic, tentatively Skadi, which Macha has also suggested.
Here's a photo I found of Celestine performing with the "White Tara" mask. Note the big "orb" that turned up in the picture!
With the very best wishes,
Lauren
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on February 14
lauren raine
Posted project update #61/3 of the way there!
Post CommentI'm really pleased that I'm 1/3 of the way to achieving my goal! But now I guess I'm really going to have to hit the emails to make it happen! Thanks again to those who have so kindly pledged toward this Project. This collection of up to 30 masks, which I hope I'll be able to finish this summer, will be available for all communities to use as "Temple Masks" to tell the stories of the Goddess, and to "bring alive" spirits of place. I'm always open to new stories and ideas that can become masks...........so feel free to share them with me and Macha.
This past summer I made a personal pilgrimage to Glastonbury, England, to attend the Goddess Conference there, and to experience the sacred springs of Avalon, the Red Spring (Chalice Well), and the White Spring, sacred springs that go back to the legends of King Arthur and beyond. This new mask I call "The Lady of Avalon", and look forward to the day the mask is danced. Here's a video from the Goddess Conference, the "Waters of the World" ceremony we created there. It was truly Avalon.
http://threadsofspiderwoman.blogspot.com/2011/08/videos-from-goddess-conference.html
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on February 11
lauren raine
Posted project update #52 New Masks Finished
Post CommentI'm pleased to have finished these two rather intense masks - one is a Trickster Goddess, the other a Volcano! They await storytellers, and story...........
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on February 10
lauren raine
Posted project update #4Thank you! 24% Funded!
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My great thanks, once again, to those who are supporting this project. I'm becoming very hopeful it will get funded! And I've been in the studio all the past week working on 5 masks, which are close (I hope) to being shared on this site.........
In our proposal Macha wants masks that are elemental, allowing "voice" to goddesses that have their origins in places...the land, the waters, the forests - the "spirits of place" that become the wellsprings of myth.
Myths (and masks) open windows into the sacred landscape of the mythic imagination. I remember when I visited Findhorn, the intense sense of the "fey folk", the garden devas, I felt there, the sense that gardeners and the elemental intelligences of nature were, indeed, co-creating there.
Well, I hope I soon have a few new "numinous masks" of the Goddess to show!
Thank you!
Lauren
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on January 31
lauren raine
Posted project update #3Art and "magic"
Post CommentMany of my friends and fellow collaborators have already heard the story of the "Corn Mother" mask, but I just posted it again on one of my blogs, because it's such a wonderful story. I have no doubt the new collection will gather new stories that are equally magical as others use them!
http://threadsofspiderwoman.blogspot.com/2012/01/corn-mother-and-collaboration.html
With thanks again to Mana Youngbear and Christy Salo.
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lauren raine
Tucson, AZ
I've been a mask artist for 30 years. After studying mask traditions in Bali, I was inspired to create a collection of contemporary "Temple Masks", which became over 35 masks. My MFA is from the University of Arizona, and I've taught mask a... view more
We have about 24 hours to go, the project may still get funded. So close!