Sunday, March 20, 2011

Mask Making, Day 2,3, 4







Just posting progress shots!
Moved form the Axe to hammer and chisel and finally to the knife on day four. I really hope to finish it this week, but we'll see how far I get.

Monday, March 7, 2011

Topeng adventures Day one



So, since this is primarily an art blog, I figured I should post some art or something, but I don't have a scanner or access to photoshop this semester so you'll just have to deal with pictures of the Topeng mask making process.
Monday morning we didn't have class till 1:00 pm (but lunch was provided at noon) so I made my merry way over to the village-town of Mas, home to the one and only Ida Bagus Anon,Topeng mask maker extraordinaire. (No really, according to his claims, he is half the reason tourists buy Topeng masks at all) I was given a chunk of wood, an axe, and some dimensions and set out to make a mask of my very own.

After two hours of hacking away it looked a bit like this.


Then onto step two...cutting the corners off.


I didn't end up getting to far on that part though what with it being quarter past eleven and me needing to leave at 11:45. So at the end of Day One my mask stood at this point.


My right arm is so sore!


In other news, the sister of my fmaily's son's wife came to visit Monday evening and brought her family. And if that's not confusing enough, her husband is from Croatia, they met in India, and now they live just outside of London. They share English as a second language but haven't yet been able to learn each other's native tongue, and their two year old son's travel records would put an enthusiast to shame. I can only hope their hour long motor bike ride back to Denpasar went well despite the thunderstorm.

Sunday, March 6, 2011

Check in






So I apologies for the lack of posts. I will put the blame partly on not having a steady time or place for Internet, and partially on my own inability to write things down every day. So rather than submit to you another freakishly long post describing in detail my experiences in Java and the past week and a half in Bali I figured I'd just say I'm alive, and living with a wonderful family in Bedulu Bail. We have a regular class schedule now, which is actually very helpful, and we're not busing around every moment. We had our first free weekend last week, and then another this week, and we've been here a month. Should give you an idea of how our schedule's been.



I will say that in Java we were able to visit the two great temples known as Brambadour and Prambanon. And had a short week long home stay with a Muslim family in a village outside the city of Yogyakarta. And that I lost any pictures I had of them when I went and lost my camera. I did manage to replace that though, so there will be plenty more pictures from this trip.