8oinks

Randolph Harmes, Born Omaha, Nebraska, 1944. Served in Vietnam, Army.

My masks mark a change in my interest from the appearance of Indian art to the purposes for which it was used. They show little physical resemblence to Indian masks, but they represent, to a degree, the assimilation of Indian liturgical mask-making traditions. They deal more with feelings than with specific experiences. Dulce Bellum Inexpertis translates as “war is sweet to those who have not experienced it.” the title is taken directly from a sixteenth-century poem by George Gascoigne. It compares the realities of war with the myths of war. I also think of Wilfred Owen’s poem “Dulce et Decoru, Est“. It is concerned with anger and rage: anger at being used, lied to, and manipulated for the benefit of Litton Industries, Honeywell, and Bankamerica.

The Ritual Suicide Mask deals more woth guilt: guilt over surviving, guilt over having participated, in any manner, in the war. Making the masks was a way for me to put some of this behind me—kind of primal screams whose purpose is to expose, examine, and then expunge or exorcize these old ghosts. A focus these works share with traditional masks is transformation: transformation of the maker/wearer, transformation of the mundane to the mystical and vice versa.