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Photo: Ben Toht.
Liz Sexton’s rat mask for Halloween in Brooklyn, New York, a few years ago started her papier-mâché art career.
I’m guessing that nearly everyone who launches into serious downsizing finds a papier-mâché puppet head that a kid made in school — in my case, not only Suzanne’s puppet head but also one that I made around age 10. Clumsy as the heads invariably are, it’s painful to get rid of something that feels so much like an accomplishment.
Today’s story is about a woman who has raised papier-mâché to high art.
Alex V. Cipolle reports at Minnesota Public Radio, “Hunched over her work bench with a box cutter, Liz Sexton carves out the spikes on the back of a horseshoe crab. … The crab is papier-mâché and the size of a shield. Composed of more than a dozen layers of paper bags, its shell feels as strong as one, too. …
“The crab is one of more than 15 papier-mâché animal masks and sculptures Sexton is preparing for her first-ever solo exhibition. The show, ‘Liz Sexton: Out of Water,’ [opened] May 5 at the Minnesota Marine Art Museum in Winona, Minn. …
“At her home studio in St. Paul, many of these animal creatures — an Atlantic walrus, a humpback angler fish, a polar bear — stare down at her from the shelves. Others are placed around the house in various stages of completion. …
“Her masks are incredibly lifelike. And papier-mâché is only step one. She can spend upwards of 100 hours on a mask, honing the details using woodworking techniques, be that carving more than a hundred tri-pointed teeth of a marine iguana, or using an orbital sander to achieve the milky smooth skin of a beluga whale. …
“Sexton receives commissions from around the globe, so they must withstand all the perils of international shipping. And the masks, she says, are meant to be worn, after all. …
“Her partner, Ben Toht, is a fellow creative and collaborator. He shoots photos and creates gifs of Sexton wearing her masks in the wild, which will also be featured in the exhibition. Watching the masks progress from their initial lumpy gumdrop shape, he says, is incredible. …
“Like many of us, Sexton learned papier-mâché as a kid — her dad taught her. For many years, she did it as a hobby. …
“ ‘I moved around a lot. I was in France and Germany,’ she says of her time living in small apartments in Europe. With papier-mâché, ‘you don’t need a lot of supplies or space. You get some newspapers for free, some flour and water, and you can make whatever you want.’
“In her free time, she would make costumes and props for weddings. The turning point was Halloween in New York, when she and Toht were living in Brooklyn. For the city’s annual Halloween parade, she made them masks of the city’s patron saint, the rat.
“ ‘It was kind of incredible,’ Toht says. ‘With all the insanity of New York, and all the insanity of New York Halloween, these always got a lot of attention. People love the rats.’ They recall how people would chant ‘New York City rats’ at them. …
“Since then, Vogue Singapore has used her masks in video shoots. And the New York Times Style Magazine commissioned 70 animal busts for a star-studded 2019 event. …
“Sexton and Toht moved back to Minnesota from New York right before the pandemic. Her family, a family of artists, lives here. As Sexton rips up paper bags, she says they are surprised by her career, but very excited. …
“Sexton has also been an animal lover since she was a kid, and she’s particularly keen on marine life. Part of her artistic process, she says, is doing deep research into her subjects.
“She talks with ease about how the blood of horseshoe crabs is used for vaccines or describes the unusual mating habits of angler fish.
“ ‘Oh, another fun fact: Manatees can regulate their buoyancy by releasing gas from their bodies,’ she says, laughing. ‘I put that in the show notes because I thought kids would appreciate it.’ “
“Liz Sexton: Out of Water” runs through Sept. 3 in Winona, Minnesota.
More at Minnesota Public Radio, here. No firewall. Delightful pictures.
Absolutely amazing! Worthy of a Maine wowsah. I clicked the link to see pictures of her creations. I am in awe of what she can do with papier mache.
It was hard to pick only one to share. Didn’t you love the manatee at the laundromat?
I loved them all!