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“But there is an environmental message here as well: The animals are being displaced by the human growth of cities, so their native habitats are being lost and they’re being to forced to live in human spaces.Click here for the lowest price(Use promo code MIRA10 for 10% off) I mean, they are people wearing animal masks in places where you wouldn’t expect it,” Casey says. She poses nonchalantly in water-related sites, from the shores of Lake Superior to the Maryland Coin laundry in St. Lining the gallery walls will be Toht’s photographs and cinemagraphs (essentially high-end gifs) of Sexton wearing the masks around the state. “I've probably worn most of them,” Casey says, his voice resonating inside the mask.

This made her a perfect fit for the Minnesota Marine Art Museum – whose motto is “Great Art Inspired by Water”-the curators say.Īt the museum along the Mississippi River in Winona, one of the curators, Dave Casey stands in the gallery during the installation process. “I put that in the show notes because I thought kids would appreciate it.”Ĭourtesy of the Minnesota Marine Art Museum “Oh, another fun fact: Manatees can regulate their buoyancy by releasing gas from their bodies,” she says, laughing. “She has a lot of animal factoids that are pretty interesting from her research,” Toht says.Īs she works, she talks with ease about how the blood of horseshoe crabs is used for vaccines or describes the unusual mating habits of angler fish. Part of her artistic process, she says, is doing deep research into her subjects. Sexton has also been an animal lover since she was a kid, and she’s particularly keen on marine life. “He’s like, ‘Wow, that really set off a chain of events.’”
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“My dad finds it funny that he taught me how to do papier-mâché, making a pinata when I was five,” she says. As Sexton rips up paper bags, she says they are surprised by her career, but very excited. Her family, a family of artists, lives here. Sexton and Toht moved back to Minnesota from New York right before the pandemic. She can do whatever she wants.’ So, it was sweet to have that affirmation.”

He immediately shut them down and was like, ‘Puppetry is punk rock. “They were like, “Is it going to look like that?” she says, laughing. The rocket ships she was making were still unfinished and had not been painted yet, so they looked lumpy. She recalls a story about when the producers and show creator Joel Hodgson stopped by her studio to see her progress. So, it was fun to make some weird stuff out of papier-mâché for the show,” says Sexton. “This was one of my favorite shows growing up. The team behind the reboot of “Mystery Science Theater 3000” also commissioned props from her. And the New York Times Style Magazine commissioned 70 animal busts for a star-studded 2019 event and featured her in a story about the medium. Since then, Vogue Singapore has used her masks in video shoots. “It just encouraged me to keep going,” Sexton says. One year for Halloween, Sexton made raven masks and it made the front page of the Gothamist, the couple recalls. And the masks, she says, are meant to be worn, after all. Sexton receives commissions from around the globe, so they must withstand all the perils of international shipping. The result is that these papier-mâché pieces, like the horseshoe crab, are incredibly strong and robust. “And I just find ways to make it harder on myself, but in ways that I feel are rewarding.” “For most people, I feel like when you’ve been doing something for a while, you get more efficient,” Sexton says.
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She can spend upwards of 100 hours on a mask, honing the details using woodworking techniques, be that carving more than a hundred tri-pointed teeth of a marine iguana, or using an orbital sander to achieve the milky smooth skin of a beluga whale. I don’t know if it’s a verb,” she says, laughing. Many of us have dabbled in the medium as kids. Others are placed around the houses in various stages of completion. Paul, many of these animal creatures - an Atlantic walrus, a humpback angler fish, a polar bear - stare down at her from the shelves. Sexton is one of the world’s preeminent artists in the medium curator Jon Swanson says she’s elevated it to a high art.Īt her home studio in St.
