Papier-mâché
I spent a lot of my childhood doing papier-mâché… which I thought was normal. But according to Anthony, “No, not normal”.
I don’t know exactly what I was papier-mâchéing but when Diogo decided to be Frankenstein’s Monster for Halloween I knew exactly how I would make the head piece, I’ve obviously made several cardboard Frankenstein hair-dos because that is a normal thing to do.
“No. Not normal.” Says Anthony again.
I of course had to double down and call my sister,
“dont you remember making a lot of cardboard Frankenstein hair head things when we were kids?”
“No.” She said…
“like the same era we’d braid our hair around wire to make Pippi Longstocking braids.”
“Vaguely..” she said.
“Normal!” I annouced to Anthony as I got off the phone. “Perfectly normal!”
We did so much papier mache (I’m sorry but adding the accents is killing me) that I can conjure up the smell, the feeling of the paste between my fingers, the sound of the dry papier mache cracking as I’d shove whatever I made over my head.
My relationship with papier mache has of course always been seasonal, and as I’ve moved into adulthood and then into parenthood, there comes a day each fall where Anthony and I clear everything from the kitchen table and pull out the bags of flour.
The first papier mache that we ever did together was a tiger mask for Diogo when he was 4, then a gray squirrel mask, a black panther, several mussel shells, a moon mask, an ogre’s head, a Viking helmet, a swan, a battle king crown, King Tut’s Sarcophagus, and then this week we’ve done what you’re seeing here. Anthony, with his sculpture background, has a natural aptitude for this kind of work and so each year he has taken more of a lead on our processes, clays, and mixes. Typically I lead form making and we’ll go in and add detail together. The kids help in more the painting parts because they think the texture of the paste is “yucky”, which it is, but unfortunately they’ll never share this core memory of goop between their fingers or ripping all the hairs off the back of their hands as they scrape the dried paste off after they’re done.
