Donna Demente and Jeff Mitchell's masks are breathtaking. Ms Demente said she loved to try and revive pageantry and masquerade through her masks.
This week students in their class at the Whanganui UCOL Summer School of the Arts, which began this week, are making their own masks, which Ms Demente says, is a lot of mucking around in the process.
The "mucking around" is fine and painstaking work on the papier-mache-over-clay-mould masks, which she sands and to which she adds layered paint and ridged finishing touches. Ms Demente calls it pottering and finishing.
The summer school was a social time and the creative and festive feel of community was the opposite of the way she usually worked.
The workshops she held at different summer schools allowed students to discover their talents, Ms Demente said.
In 1991, Ms Demente won the Wearable Arts Award and has forged a reputation as a mask-maker and instigator of community arts events.
Originally from Dairy Flat, north of Auckland, Ms Demente attended the Elam School of Fine Art before heading to the South Island.
She lives in Oamaru and runs an artists' collective and gallery in Oamaru's historic precinct.
Summer school co-ordinator Katrina Langdon said 18 classes were being held this year with good numbers in each. UCOL started organising tutors for the programme in February, she said.
The line-up of tutors is impressive.
Painter Lily Laita is "Taking the PAIN out of painting", Brent Sumner is creating large free-form sculptures for the garden and Frances Stachl and Craig McIntosh create significant jewellery for both beginners and those with experience.
A costume and textile technician for The Lord of the Rings, Annie Tatton will teach her class how to make a wearable art entry.
Garry Nash's hot glass workshops will cover a wide range of techniques and methods, and Wanganui glass artist Carmen Simmonds will give students the opportunity to play with texture, form and colour.
Wanganui photographer Leigh Mitchell-Anyon's workshop will focus on developing creative and technical skills and Auckland-based Haruhiko Sameshima's workshop will revitalise an interest in analogue photography.
UK-based Kiwi harmonica-player Brendan Power is back by popular demand, and Richard Hingston is showing culinary art in "pastry with a passion".
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