Over the weekend I attended the Ebell Club zoom screening of the short film by Judy Leventhal, a researcher/filmmaker who has put together a 3-minute video about Edith Wyle as part of an effort by an organization called “Look What She Did: Artists of Los Angeles.” The Ebell Club “honors women in the arts and other fields of accomplishment.”
The film is a wonderful tribute to Edith Wyle, Founder and Director Emeritus of the Craft and Folk Art Museum (CAFAM.) For me the short film engendered memories of my work at the Museum (1977-1986) as volunteer and then Director of Special Programs and producer of the International Festival of Masks. The images from the Parade of Masks reminded me of its cultural and community importance. We were so lucky to have had the stalwart support of Ethel Tracy, an educator and community advocate in South Central LA, and Helen Young in the Chinese Community. Helen and Ethel taught us, Shan (Sharon Emanuelli, 1977-1978 Coordinator ) and me, directly instructing us on community feelings and cultural protocols of relationship. Their generous relationship with the Festival of Masks provided abundant support and made possible extensive community involvement. These relationships were reflective of Edith Wyle's deep respect for people of diverse backgrounds and knowledge, a respect that was reciprocated by the leaders of LA's many ethnic communities. Respect for diversity made the Festival of Masks a resounding success.
In 1980, I curated an exhibition, Masks in Motion: Form and Function. Edith and I collaborated on the installation design; or, rather, she mentored me, sharing her installation expertise, especially as it related to wall color selection. She, in turn, had been mentored by her painting teacher, Rico LeBrun, and later by Bernard Kester, highly regarded in-house exhibition designer at LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art). Bernard Kester was a frequent visitor to CAFAM, during the exhibition planning process, contributing his aesthetic, curatorial, and educational philosophy. A vivid image comes to mind of Bernard and Edith during exhibition preparatory work, considering color swatches in dynamic debate.
I had come to know many LA collectors of fine masks during the years I served as Coordinator of the International Festival of Masks. It was from their collections that I selected the masks for the exhibition, many of which represented the multifarious cultural traditions of Los Angeles. The following poem served as my exhibition curatorial statement.
Masks in Motion
These masks
each a cosmos
each a seed
project their presence.
They breathe as mountains do;
are raw, untidy
and have their own order.
They, in tremulous patience,
wait to be born, again,
through the traverse of time
and density of memory.
In the ambient world
of ritual, ceremony, and belief
they reassemble the world—
with clarity, energy, and transparency.
They go before us,
speaking the substance of our lives
and guard us from behind
in a trembling and supple grace
as we pursue ourselves.
These masks,
live deeply with things
and launch us towards those
far from us
in culture, space, and time.
Each image resounds
engages
informs
infuses us with being.
Grouped together,
we see aspects
of a common concern,
resolved in different forms.
—Willow Young, 1980
To my work at the museum the WAC in 1982 I brought my education and training at UCLA where I was enrolled in the interdisciplinary program, Ethnic Arts (later renamed World Arts and Cultures (WAC). The program was founded by academic visionary Allegra Fuller Snyder, daughter of Buckminster Fuller, who conceived of the multidisciplinary program, which included courses in Anthropology, Art History, Dance, Ethnomusicology, Theater, Folklore and Mythology. The international student enrollment in the program was tended to by Judy Mitoma (Susilo), Judy Mitoma joined the Dance Department in 1978 and the WAC Program in 1982. She was Director of the UCLA Center for Intercultural Performance and Professor of Dance in the Department of World Arts & Cultures. As the founding chair of the Department of World Arts and Cultures, in 1995 she established the only arts department in the United States based on interdisciplinary, international and intercultural research with a performance agenda. I am grateful to Allegra for the education in the program and to Judy, who taught me the value of community trust, and introduced me to many artists who would come to participate in the International Festival of Masks, sharing their heritage of mask making, masked dances, music, theater, and mythology.