Sunday, September 13, 2009

African Masks: Elliott Style




We were reading about African dynasties that flourished just South of the Sahara in our Story of the World book recently. The girls had fun creating their own "African Masks" but I think I made a mistake by not showing them pictures of African masks ahead of time. They made what amounted to cute little animal puppets with fringe. I'd like to take them to the Denver Art Museum to see if they have some authentic masks so the girls could get a better idea of what we were talking about. It just isn't the same looking at a picture.

1 comment:

Rose B. said...

Hi Jess,
The Denver Art Museum does have some amazing African masks in the African gallery (4th level of the Hamilton Building), including an Egungan mask on a special mount that moves to give the effect it would have in use during ceremonies. Background on a couple of the masks is available on our website under Explore Art, Collections. Also, if you haven't checked it out, there is a great resource for teachers/homeschoolers at http://creativity.denverartmuseum.org.
Have a great day!
Rose, Denver Art Museum