The best time to have a good time in New Orleans is
during Mardi Gras, so let's make it more fun by adding masks (in a creative
way). Get ready to try on masks, meet mask artists, and have fun on Decatur
Street at this year's Mardi Gras Mask Market!
For a few decades, the creation and exploration of the
Mardi Gras Mask Market has excited the community in the Dutch Alley and French
Market area. This traditional gathering of mask makers occurs the weekend
before Mardi Gras in the French Quarter. It shows and platforms handmade Mardi
Gras necessities, masks, headdresses, and more work from six artists from
around the U.S. Masks are sold between $8 to $800, so there is something for
anyone and everyone to enjoy!
The Mardi Gras Mask Market this year will take place
Friday, February 25 through Monday, February 28 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the
courtyard of Secondline Arts & Antiques on 1209 Decatur St., so add it to
your French Quarter/Frenchmen Street walk-abouts. Every age is encouraged to
keep the traditional dream alive by joining the spirit booster of Mardi Gras
Mask Market.
The idea for the market born from Reverend Mike Stark,
also known as the "Patron Saint of Masks in New Orleans." He set up the first
Mardi Gras Mask Market to connect and unite people to the best wearable
handmade masks in the world. In his day, artists came from all types of places
like Italy and Australia to showcase their work to people who knew exactly what
they needed in masks and to tourists just learning how much they needed them.
"It really has always been a legacy to the genius and
heart of Mike Stark this 'Win/Win,' 'No Brainer' presentation of the finest
masks made in the world at the greatest masking street party ever! It lets us
do our finest work and forces us charge our best possible prices because of the
completion we have with each other, plus, what a great way to celebrate the
Carnival, gathering and sharing and having a blast with each other, our fans
and the public," Jeff Semmerling, one of the four original partners in 1982 of
Mike Stark's "False Fronts/Little Shop of Fantasy" Mask Shops, said in a press
release.
"I'm fascinated by the simultaneous hiding and
revealing that masking entails," said Portland, Oregon mask maker Cris Chapman,
another original partner in the early Mike Stark Mask Shops.
The mask market has always been a help for the careers
of many mask makers and, in that way, improved the public masking culture of
the world. Throughout the fun four-day weekend, it is free to try on masks all
day until you are ready to buy one.
