Do you have a favourite project or artwork that you created and can’t stop talking about? The Masks of Me is mine, but I don’t think I talk about it enough – there are some social media and whole groups of people in my life I haven’t shown it to.
There may be a reason why I’m not going to tell my mom about it, but who’s stopping me from shouting about it all over the internet – or, at least, on my own website, amirite?
This also coincides with me finally releasing my first digital product: a booklet dedicated to The Masks of Me project, all the personal stories and experiences it covers, and the behind-the-scenes of making it.
Let me tell you a little bit about The Masks of Me!
The Idea
The project was created a short while after I got into the NFT community (there will definitely be a separate post about that someday!). I was trying to come up with something special and unique, different from what people usually sold and bought as NFTs, as well as created specifically for the NFT space – I didn’t want to dig up old drawings and repurpose them.
Spoiler alert: the project is quite different indeed, but I’m afraid it’s one of the main reasons it received quite a few compliments and not too many sales. People were jumping to say that they have never seen something like it (which I sincerely appreciate!), but only a few (three, to be exact) were brave and generous enough to buy into the weirdness.
The main idea of the collection is quite simple: the concept of a mask but reversed, using a mask to reveal something about myself rather than hide it.
The Process
I wanted to release the masks on my birthday, and when I finalized the idea, I only had a little over a month left. A month to make all the paper mache bases for the masks, to decorate each one (and there had to be 35 of them!), and then to photograph, as the final product was going to be a photograph.
I had to dive into my childhood memories of making paper mache, purchase some materials, and gather all the art supplies I had – even though I needed to buy some stuff, I wanted the project to be as eco-friendly as possible, so I made the most of the stuff I had or bought mostly second-hand.
I enjoyed making the masks although by the end it was quite tiring and I couldn’t wait to complete it.
In the booklet and in a couple of posts on Medium, I cover the process in more detail – check out one or the other if you are curious, but also feel free to ask questions in the comments.
The Result
The resulting photos are awesomely weird, and most of them are exactly what I was going for. You can see them all in the booklet or on the project page here on my site.
Each mask and photo also comes with a story, some of them pretty long: they are stories about my experiences, my likes and dislikes, and things that shaped me growing up. Some are more positive while others are fairly somber. Some go rather deep while others are light-hearted.
This is obviously not all there is to know about me, but if you want to know me as a person, that’s a fairly sizable slice of who I am.
The NFTs
On the one hand, the reception of the project in the NFT community was very positive: people complimented the idea and then the project itself, followed me to keep an eye on my progress.
On the other – well, I already complained about it above. I loved the project so much and my expectations for it were too high. But I was an unknown artist with a small audience and an ambitious product with weird imagery and not the cheapest price.
It may also just not be a product suitable for NFT art. Although getting into the NFT community actually gave me a huge boost in my confidence as an artist and helped me grow a lot, I am looking to expand beyond it and reevaluating things. I am not sure what the masks would be most suited for, but who knows, maybe I will be able to get them into some sort of exhibition of digital art. What do you think?
The Future
The masks are still available as NFTs and I am not planning to burn (delete) them. With the booklet and a dedicated page on the website, I want to try and bring just a little more attention to it.
I will do my best to promote my masks, try and talk more about them, and show them on different platforms. Who knows, maybe someday they will get the recognition that matches the expectations I had for masks when I created them.
Final Thoughts
When creating, I am constantly torn between creating something that is more marketable and just going wild with experimenting. I will continue doing both, this is not the last awesomely weird project you are going to see from me!
Thank you so much for reading! If you have any questions or thoughts on The Masks of Me, feel free to share in the comments, I’d be thrilled to discuss the project with you.
Julia Sol Studio 
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