New Years Day 2000 from The Mask Series

"Lounge Kat No. 1"

Spending New Years Eve at Danny Elfman's beach house in Malibu was a perfect way to start the New Century. I had recently relocated from Northern to Southern California and to spend such a pivotal moment in history there, was truly a gift after the rough year I had just gone through. My friend worked for Danny and had invited me as her guest to ring in the new millennium. The excitement of that monumental New Year's Eve filled the air. Danny even played a rare piece of music, just as the clock struck midnight, that my Grandmother Julia, a trained opera singer from Morsasco, used to sing.

Synchronicity was in the air...

It was a turning point in my life and I was determined to start a new photographic series based on whatever I shot on New Years Day 2000. New Life, New Year, New Century! Fortuitously, masks were strewn around the outdoor patio and as people began to wake from their slumber, they slowly entered the sunshine and donned a mask. Without missing a beat, I picked up my camera and began to shoot portraits of the mask wearing party goers. It immediately clicked. I saw what was to become my next photographic series, which I ended up shooting for the next 2 years.

Presented here are the first 4 images that sparked The Mask Series. Transforming my usually shy friends into amazingly vibrant actors, the masks allowed them to be free from judgement, free to posses the mask they had selected. The Mask Series is a study of iconic identity and the freedom a mask gives us to take up symbolic gestures that embody universal characters.

Of course, these first initial images show the exact reaction to a night after a millennial party...

There was an exhibition of a dozen of these images at a warehouse in downtown LA in 2003 but not many people had the opportunity to see or purchase these images. I have now decided to make them available for viewing here on my blog and will present a set from The Mask Series each month.

There are 30 sets total!

These images will be available to purchase in a limited edition, from my Etsy Store. My hope is to someday translate these images into silkscreen prints but until I have enough money, time or interest from outside patrons, that project remains a dream.

Somethings Change on New Years Day,

Julie Pavlowski Green
March 15, 2014

"Lounge Kat No. 2"

"Untitled Mask No. 1" 

"Untitled Mask No. 2"