Barbier-Mueller Museum, Geneva

When I did my research for my children’s book I went amongst a lot of other places to the Barbier-Mueller museum in Geneva, Switzerland. This one had just opened a new exhibition at that time about masks from all around the world. I absolutely loved that exhibition, which is still on until September 16th. Since they didn’t have a catalogue then, I did many sketches of the various masks I saw there and which inspired me. It was kind of creepy being watched by so many ancient masks, but at the same time it makes you think where and when they were used and how significant they were to their original owners. It makes me tingle all over to see something so beautiful and rough like the designs of ancient tribes.

Last week I had the fortunate chance to go back to the museum to show them what I had done with my sketches and to buy the catalogue. The staff was so happy and encouraging, it was really sweet. They immediately offered me the wonderful catalogue as a gift and said, that even though I can’t read the content (since it is in French) I can at least enjoy the images and draw more masks. I was very happy and am a very proud owner of this beautiful catalogue. It’s my newest treasure and I am sure it will be a great source of inspiration in the future. I will now attempt to sketch at least one mask every few days. There are 100 masks in the book, so plenty to work with ^^