Autumn Sentinel

I wanted to create a mask much like native peoples from around the world use in the telling of their ancestral stories. This is my interpretation of such masks though there is no ancestral story I think of him as a protector, a watcher over the autumn season. The texture on the face is multiple weld beads that took me forty hours to complete. I made this piece from part of a high-pressure tank that I had left over from another project. I use these tanks in many of my pieces. They are condemned, scraped cylinders used in the welding and medical field, think oxygen or CO2 gas cylinder. The headdress is hand cut copper leaves soldered to common nails and then welded to the head.