My collaborator/Mustache Sister, Aya Kakeda, and I are up to more mustache activities... we're in the process of creating a new mustache commissioned by the Philadelphia Museum of Art, for their evening of Italian Opera Music and Art on June 4th. Above is a photo of the mustache under construction. We use felt, glue and thread. This one will have beads too.
As folk art inspired our previous mustache, we tried to find some Italian folk imagery to inform this one. But it proved difficult to pinpoint a typical Italian folk art vocabulary through which we could try to have a visually collaborative "conversation". But we did find the ceramic art of Deruta, Italy to be very inspiring, especially this guy.
We also feature a symbol from Italy's capital, Rome: La Bocca della Verità , who represents a water-god, and whose mouth serves as a lie-detector test for anyone who wants to put their hand in there. Other imagery includes the lily (Italy's flower), and some Italian food items, like the lemon, the olive, and the sardine (see second photo, above).
Grey is the color of this mustache, because this is for Italian Opera night at the Museum, and we just felt that called for an "older" mustache. Aya and I will be there on June 4th, for the Art After Five event, with tables of craft materials for any museum-goers who want to make an Italian Masquerade Ball Mustache Mask with us.
(Felt scraps from making the mustache... I love felt! And working with Aya!)
