(a)Head

Oh hi.
This is an update about my Maya Head. This thing is now finished and will live on top of my closet next to my other finished sculptures that I wish to never display in my own apartment.

This photo is the third step, after I had formed the head with paper pulp, tape and newspaper I paper mached the entire thing with newspaper and a elmer glue/modpodge and water mixture. After the newspaper was dry I coated the entire thing with a thin wash of plaster and let this cure. The surface started to gain tiny cracks which was a happy surprise for me!

After the plaster cured I painted the entire thing with greys and neutral browns and greens. I then attached pieces of fabric and newspaper to create a somewhat symmetrical head dress. I then painted the newspaper and left the fabric as-is.

The next step was to mimic the broad lines of the carvings and paintings at Palenque, Tikal and Bonampak. I used black to contrast next to the grey and as a reminder of the archaeological illustrations and line drawings of specific carvings- More specifically the carving of King Pakal on his sarcophagus lid which some believe (because of a few authors uneducated in Maya archaeology) That this was proof of the end of the world in which King Pakal is said to return to Earth.
Another theory is that this is actually depicting Ancient astronauts. However, according to the archaeologist that study nothing but Maya glyphs that is a dumb assumption. No seriously, Ancient astronauts flying into space without oxygen and foot peddles? I give them props for creativity but this carving is just showing King Pakal's journey from the natural world into the world of the supernatural.

Any way, I thought this story was super neat and how people interpret art in their own way no matter to what science has said. I also think it's hilarious that this guy probably had no idea that he would some day make millions of people plan a date for the end of the world when he was just dead. Just a dead king sitting in his clam shell on top of the jaws of the supernatural beast waiting to be a god and all these silly people from the 2nd millennium are writing books and fucking like rabbits because they don't want the world to end. Because k'atuns are like pringles- you just pop the top and once they're gone we all fucking die.
YEH. so I also added some Sun, jade and sky glyphs to this guy cause apparently they loved their sun and sky glyphs (AND FUCKING LOVED JADE) and put them all over the place. It was necessary to them, so it's necessary to my crappy art.

This is the final product. I crochet a pillow for the guys head to rest on and attached it via wire and eye hooks, placed it on top of a piece of distressed canvas which I gessoed and painted more sun and sky glyphs on because, well, see above.

After that I melted some paraffin wax and doused that mofo all up in wax because I decided I didn't like all that black.

Jim was kind enough to take this guy out to our parking lot and take pictures of it on the asphalt in the beautiful sun. Unfortunately he got paraffin wax all over his hands and the touch screen on his camera wouldn't recognize wax as "Jim's fingers"
THANKS YOU AMAZING MAN, YOU.