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Beckie Kravetz is
an artist whose work is inspired by stories from around the world:
opera themes, opera characters, myths, legends, and fairy tales.
She trained in theater arts and mask-making at the Yale School of
Drama and Italy's Centro Maschere e Strutture Gestuali, then apprenticed
to mask-maker Ralph Lee on "The Wildman Project" at the
Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York. She later studied
wooden mask carving at Taller de Madera in Guatemala.
Beckie's deep involvement with opera
began with a job as a resident mask-maker for the Santa Fe Opera,
where she also became intrigued by the arts of theatrical makeup
and wig-making. "The makeup and wig department was next to
the craft shop," she recalls. "I looked in and saw what
they were doing and I had a huge revelation. They were painting
masks on real faces!" She trained in these new areas while
on the job in Santa Fe, and while touring with the Western Opera
Theater. In 1987 she joined the L.A. Opera, and continues to work
there to this day as a mask-maker, wig-maker and makeup artist.
She has worked with Julie Taymore, Donato Satori, Bob Beuth and
other top mask designers, and has painted the faces of such singers
as Placido Domingo, Thomas Allen, Anthony Laciura, Rodney Gilfry,
and Marie McLaughlin. "My work as a sculptor and as a makeup
artist have evolved simultaneously," she says. "Working
on singers deepens my knowledge of anatomy, and the techniques I
use as a make-up artist and as a sculptor deeply influence each
other."
In 1996, Beckie began to divide her
time between the opera in Los Angeles and her sculpting studio in
a small town in the grasslands of southern Arizona. Her studio is
a magical place crowded with masks, books, tools, sculptures in
various states of completion, and the natural objects that fire
her creativity: gourds, leaves, seedpods, snakeskins, quills, feathers,
roots, stones, etc. She works in a variety of media, including bronze,
terra cotta, polychrome resin, leather, rice paper, enamel, gold
leaf, semiprecious stones, and sterling silver. Her work has been
exhibited in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Scottsdale (Arizona)
and other cities. She also teaches sculpture and mask-making workshops
for children and adults.
Recently, Beckie brought her passions
for sculpting and opera together in the creation of an extraordinary
exhibition called Sculpted Arias. Each of the twelve pieces
in the show is a portrait mask of a character from the operas that
have particularly inspired the artist over the years, ranging from
core repertoire like Verdi's Otello and Strauss's Der
Rosenkavalier to less familiar works like Janacek's The Makropoulos
Case. This work is meant to be viewed in the round, for the
backs of the masks function as model stages in which painted, collaged,
kinetic and sculpted images further illuminate the character and
his or her story. The sculptures are made of materials as diverse
as the characters they represent. "Otello is in bronze,"
Beckie explains, "to represent his solidity. The Queen of Night
is in enamel because she is cold and lovely. And Madame Butterfly
is rice-paper delicate and easily torn." Sculpted Arias
debuted at the Dorothy Chandler Pavillion, Los Angeles, in September
1998, opening the L.A. Opera's 1998-1999 Season. You can read an interview
with Beckie on the Make Up Mania website. |