10 years later, in 1993, I was attending Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute, in Troy, NY, receiving my MFA in Integrated Electronic Art. I was on summer break before entering my 2nd year of a 2-year program, and I was getting ready to decide what I was going to do for my Master's Thesis. I was in Woodstock, for the weekend - which was about an hour south on the NY State Thruway.. I was walking down Tinker St, and passing a gallery next to the hardware store, I looked in and saw the MASK!!! All my LOVE for the Mask returned in that instant. I wanted it so badly!
Teacher-dude, the artist, had made it into a chest of drawers, and was selling it for $3500. Of course, I could not afford to buy it! I took a picture of it and decided to make a copy of the mask out of clay.
like I said, i have no images of this anymore, because in the process of excorsizing this entity from my psychie I had to destroy all the images I had of it...and i have said protection prayers just so that I could draw these pictures now and just to tell you this story today
I made this mask out of airdry clay and did not paint it.
I am also going to admit to you that I must just have been extremely gullible or extremely naive - i know now that I should not have been messing around with this stuff maybe the way one looks back on playing around with a Ouija board when we were kids - but at the time, i just thought of myself as an "artist" interested in following a subject matter that felt close to my heart.
I did not realize that I was doing anything wrong or doing anything that was going to bring great harm upon myself in any way.
As a result of this clay mask making process, I decided to base my Master's Thesis upon this Mask and explore the idea of the Devil and create a performance, video and music about it... i watched tons of movies about the Devil, read tons of books about "him" and then...the next thing that I did was that I got that drawing above, tattooed on my arm.
I have seen dozens of people with negative images tattooed on their arms and none of them seem to have had the experience I had with this practice. I had no idea that I was having a Sigil embedded in my skin, nor did I consider the tattooist and how she felt about me, nor whether or not I was actually putting the spirit of that mask into my body... which to this day I still do not know.
What I do know is that what I brought upon myself was a horrific series of events which, looking back, brought me to my knees and to a place where I was able to and willing to allow Natural Law in what I know it to be it's highest form for this aeon of time (in a non-denominational, non-evangelical way) to enter me and cleanse me fully and provide me with a manner of living by which I can grow spiritually in the light, for the rest of my life...
In a way, i see God used this complete arrogance on my part, as a way to allow me to give my Free Will over to Him, and for that I am eternally grateful, however I don't recommend that YOU try this at home.
Stay tuned for Part 4...