Life Cast: Behind the Mask [Hardcover]

Willa Shalit (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1992

A sculptor tells how she uses a technique originated in the times of the Egyptian pharaohs to make plaster masks of famous people and how she shares her art with blind patrons who touch her work and get their first tactile view of the world's notables.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Shalit's work arouses a complex of responses. On one level, to cast the rich and celebrated in alginate gel and plaster seems an exercise in kitsch--a self-conscious, paint-by-the-number effort to fit snugly into Shalit's "Please Touch!" national art exhibition geared to helping the blind "see" and the sighted "experience" with their hands. On another level, even as platitudes about life casting's inherent ability to "show us what lies behind the mask" force the issue, the simplicity and the elegance of the layout and design do in fact reveal the flip side of glitz. Shalit supports her boiled-down depictions of the stars with childlike observations about the truth behind celebrityhood that magnify the irony of the mask as revealer of the truth. Unfortunately, she never fully addresses the notion of life casting as a "poor relation to genuine sculpture." Not until the last page is the reader invited to learn more about the process, and only then by sending away for a booklet. As a study in art, the volume is thus seriously lacking. While Shalit ought to be commended for donating proceeds to the Touch Foundation for the Blind, the reader is left wondering what makes the artist truly expert in her discipline.
- Marigrace Maselli, New York City
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 95 pages
• Publisher: Beyond Words Pub Co; 1St Edition edition (October 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0941831809
• ISBN-13: 978-0941831802
• Product Dimensions: 12.3 x 10.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,816,736 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Woman of a Thousand Faces, October 2, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Life Cast: Behind the Mask (Hardcover)

A Review by Kate Alexander

This remarkable art book is a whisper-soft, sensual, loving work of art in itself. The layout is stunning. Flipping the pages to look at famous faces is fine, but reading this beautiful book is a sublime journey.

Willa Shalit's passionate relections of her experiences with the faces and bodies she has cast keep the reader spellbound;so, indeed, does the verbal imagery of her models. Shalit also reveals a very personal and provocative portrait of herself. She is a pacifist, a mystic, an environmentalist (this book is printed on recycled paper); a woman who grew up with a celebrity father, the film critic Gene Shalit, and a mother troubled by depression. Out of that life bloomed a life-cast artist whose favorite sense is that of touch.

As a child, Shalit, profoundly inspired by Helen Keller, walked around pretending to be blind, using touch for sight. And her mother's illness taught her not to judge by actions but to "see behind the mask."

She has cast thousands of faces and bodies. Out of her work evolved The Touch Foundation for the Blind. She wanted to form exhibits that said "Please Touch!" rather than "Look Only." Shalit celebrates the human form and the pleasures of touch. Each luminary, cast in plaster, is beautifully photographed in seductive black and white, showing the impression of the person within, the person behind the mask. Something magical happens with this short process when a face, eyes closed, is encased in plaster gauze. Most subjects relax under the "facial" and center themselves. Sounds like Easter religion? Close. When the impression is removed, Shalit shines a light inside and there are some startling revelations.

"Wow, I look like a cherub or something," musician Wynton Marsarlis said. And Stevie Wonder, being blind, exclaimed after feeling the lifecast of his son, "This boy looks just like me!"

Arnold Schwarzenegger had never held a flex longer than 90 seconds. His extreme power of concentration allowed him to hold it long enough for the casting process. Dizzy Gillespie puffed his cheeks out, maintaining the position for 10 minutes. He figured he would give a blind person several extra minutes to explore his face.

Don't just read this book. Caress it. Indulge your senses and feel the power, harmony, intensity and warmth shared by Shalit and the numerous personalities whose inner beings are gengtly uncovered. And grow with the openness that cannot be hidden behind the mask. Shalit did.