WHO: Ink People presents an international collaborative exhibit
WHAT: A Universal Feeling
Conceived, curated, created by Tony Fuemmeler
WHEN: October 5, 2024 – October 25, 2024, Thursday-Friday, 12PM–5PM or by appointment
Opening Night Reception/Press Night: Saturday, October 5 @ 6–9PM
WHERE: Brenda Tuxford Gallery, 422 1st St, Eureka, CA 95501
ENTRANCE: Free
ARTIST & EXHIBIT PHOTOS: LOOK HERE
VIDEO TRAILER: WATCH HERE
The Ink People Center for the Arts hosts A Universal Feeling, an international collaborative installation of emotion masks featuring the work of 60 artists from around the world imbuing their own artistic and cultural perspective within their contributions. This ambitious undertaking can be viewed at the Brenda Tuxford Gallery in Old Town and was created by interdisciplinary artist Tony Fuemmeler of Blue Lake.
A Universal Feeling represents an international scope, an intensive conceptualization and logistical framework, as well as a grand effort to bear witness to human emotions— how the individual in a community expresses emotion via the art form of mask. With A Universal Feeling, Fuemmeler works with the idea of how people experience and express their internal lives. It is an exploration of how emotional expression is at the same time a personal experience, and a communal one. The installation aspires to surface the beautiful similarities and delicious differences in shared emotions and celebrate the variance of human experience the world over.
For this project Fuemmeler designed a set of mask forms inspired by each of the six universal emotions: Fear, Joy, Surprise, Anger, Sadness, and Disgust. Each of the artistic collaborators received an unpainted papier-mâché mask based on one of the six. Collaborators were then tasked with “completing” their mask, in their own way, leaning into their art form, identity, style, experiences, history, aesthetic, nationality, and culture(s). Each artist collaborator was explicitly invited to allow these lived experiences to inform how they completed their work—in essence, adding themselves to the mask.
Fuemmeler’s project stems directly from his long-standing interest in the relationship between the individual and community, the paradox of concealment and revelation in a mask, and the back-and-forth play of collaboration. There is a tension in these explored ideas within this installation, asking questions like: How do we balance a sense of self and a sense of group? How do we show aspects of ourselves even as we cover other parts? How do we release ownership in an invested way? LEARN MORE
“ I am excited about the opportunity to share this exhibit with Humboldt County,” said exhibit artist and conceiver Tony Fuemmeler. “This collaboration—one I’d been dreaming of for years—is one where I could create the initial masks and prompt other artists to complete them. I was excited to really maximize the potential of this sort of exchange by connecting it to an idea I found really invigorating: how our relationship to emotions is particularized by our lives.”
This is the third regional showing of this collection—the first in the fall of 2019 at Chehalem Cultural Center, and the second in August of 2022 in Portland, Oregon. “It’s a dream come true to have the exhibit travel to locations that are the home of some of my collaborators, in this case local actor and mask maker Daniel Baer and the late Joan Schirle.” For the past 20+ years, Fuemmeler’s primary work is in theater mask-making. In addition, his repertoire includes puppetry in a range of styles, movement direction for puppets and masks, devising new works, directing theater productions, producing, performing, and also working as a teaching artist. A 2003 graduate of Dell’Arte International, Tony relocated to Humboldt in 2022 to take a position as Interim Head of Training at Dell’Arte.
“I have long admired Tony’s work, and have had the pleasure of playing his masks onstage in several settings,” said Sean Andries, Executive Director of Chehalem Cultural Center, where the exhibition premiered in late 2019. “The ability of a well-crafted mask, full of life, to reveal the true sense of the performer who wears it has always transfixed me. When I heard about Tony’s vision for A Universal Feeling I was immediately intrigued. By collaborating with artists from many cultures and backgrounds to “finish” the masks he created for this special project, Tony has found a new way to reveal the nature of the artist within.”
ABOUT THE LEAD ARTIST
Tony Fuemmeler is a mask maker, puppeteer, director, and teacher based in Blue Lake, where he also serves as the Head of Training at Dell’Arte International. He is also faculty at Dell’Arte, where he teaches mask making and performance in actor training and arts in correction programs. Recently he has worked with Playhouse Arts and HCOE on providing Humboldt educators ways to approach social emotional learning through the art of mask.
Until 2022 he was based in Portland, Oregon, and worked in multiple local theaters as well as on stages across the country and abroad. He is a graduate of the University of Kansas and Dell’Arte International and has also trained in traditional mask carving and masked dance in Bali with Nyoman Setiawan and I.B. Gusto; neutral mask and bouffon with Giovanni Fusetti; and study leather mask making and commedia with the Sartori family at the Centro Maschere e Strutture Gestuali; and continued his exploration in devising mask plays with the internationally renowned German mask company Familie Flöz. Recent shows include The Poor of New York (Dell’Arte), Wolf Play (ART), The Very Hungry Caterpillar Show, Tomás and The Library Lady tour (Oregon Children’s Theatre), Vanessa Goodwin (Action/Adventure), bugged (Simple Machines), The Spider Queen (The NOLA Project), The Snowstorm (Many Hats), and Maya (Teach For India/ ASTEP). Tony also creates commedia, open, and larval masks for actor training at schools and universities across the United States. WATCH Tony at work in this short documentary by Chris Hatcher of Field Guide.
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS
This project incorporates valuable artistic input from Fuemmeler’s teachers in the craft of mask making and theater, past collaborators, and artistic friends from around the world. They provide a visual context for the history of Fuemmeler’s body of work, while highlighting their artistic work and perspective and extend their reach further in the artistic world.
At the onset of the project, mask-completing artists included 24 from the Portland Metro area, 24 from across the United States, and 12 from international artists. Since that time some of the artists have relocated and/or found new focuses to their work. LEARN ABOUT each of the artists here. Humboldt artists include Daniel Baer and the late Joan Schirle.
MORE ABOUT A UNIVERSAL FEELING
Over a period of 18 months Fuemmeler identified and requested collaboration from roughly 70 international artists – all of whom he’s met, worked with or studied under over the previous decades. Fuemmeler spent months researching, devising and casting six masks molds to represent the 6 universal emotions: Fear, Joy, Surprise, Anger, Sadness, and Disgust. To create these papier-mâché masks to be completed by the artists, he recruited 40 volunteers to assemble 62 emotion mask sets over two month’s time. Once completed, these masks were sent around the world, with a two-month turn-around time for completion. He also sought and received significant grant support. READ ABOUT THE JOURNEY
SUPPORTING THIS PROJECT
This exhibit was originally made possible in part by grants from the Yamhill County Cultural Coalition and Portland’s Regional Arts and Culture Council, as well as 40 individual donors raising $8,683 to close the gap to make this project happen.
LEARN MORE ABOUT THESE EXHIBITS & TAKE A DEEP DIVE INTO THE WORK OF TONY FUEMMELER
