White Copper One Thought Mask Pendant

The mask was not made for people to look at. It was made for gods to look at. Put one on in Nuo opera and the wearer stops being a person and becomes a stand-in for a god or a ghost. Nuo masks are mostly wood, painted after carving, and the brows and eyes are exaggerated past the point of realism before anyone calls them right. Opera later shrank the mask into face paint, and only the clowns and the gods kept a shell strapped over the face. This plaque takes the shape of the mask: the brow ridge and the cheekbones are both modeled, and seen from the side they cast a shadow.

One thought, good and evil: four characters about two expressions on a single face. Folk telling has it that in the instant a thought rises, good and evil divide, and the face changes with them. The plaque presses both expressions into one outline, one brow pulled low and the other lifted. The hardest thing in a small piece is that half. Cut too deep and it looks like two faces joined at the seam; cut too shallow and no difference shows at all. Buddhism speaks of three thousand realms in a single thought. Folk practice does not go that fine and simply says the thought turns and the person turns with it. The plaque makes that turn into the boundary line across the face.

Two metals and four combinations, as a single plaque or with a chain. The cold tone of white copper suits the subject, since a mask ought to keep some distance; brass is warm and wears more like an old object. The surface is artificially aged, dark left sitting in the recesses, the high faces of the brow ridge polished, and under a light the relief of that face comes forward. The aging is done with sulfide, which bites the recesses black, then fine abrasive paper lifts the high points, several passes back and forth before the layers hold.

It hangs high on the chest with the mask facing out. Round necks and V necks both work; a high collar pushes the pendant down until only half a chin shows, which is interesting in its own way. It does not look wrong on a man, because this is not divided by gender but by neckline. Pick a fine chain. The mask has volume of its own, and a thick chain bearing down on it turns clumsy. Worn against the body, the back is flat and does not dig in.

Do not take toothpaste to an aged surface. The abrasive in it carries the dark out of the recesses along with everything else, the whole piece goes pale, and the work already done is wasted. Wipe dry with a soft cloth and over a year the color settles by itself, and that patina looks better than it did when it left the bench. Copper fears damp. When the wet weather comes, put it in a sealed bag instead of leaving it out on the desk.