Ethnically Diverse Festival of Masks a Halloween Treat

Artsy-craftsy types are getting ready for next weekend, when the Los Angeles Craft and Folk Art Museum will stage its biennial Festival of Masks from noon to dusk, both next Saturday and Oct. 30, in Hancock Park. And, beginning at 6 p.m. Friday, the museum and the Contemporary Crafts Market are jointly hosting a preview party and museum fund-raiser at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. The preview kicks off the Craft Market’s two-day show and sale of art-quality crafts.

The Festival of Masks, created by the museum “to celebrate the diverse ethnic heritage of Los Angeles,” fortunately has transcended its lofty purpose to become one of the largest and most exciting Halloween carnivals in the West.

Thirteen international food booths offer hot and tasty foreign dishes including Mexican, German, Polynesian, African and Greek food. Children’s games, mask-making booths and vendors will sell international arts, crafts and specialty items.

On Oct. 30, the Parade of Masks will march down Wilshire Boulevard accompanied by community marching bands and anyone in costume who wants to come along. The parade begins at 11:30 a.m. at Wilshire Boulevard and Crescent Heights and ends on Curson Avenue next to the museum.

Mask-Making Workshops

Costumes are the order of the day, but for those who don’t have a disguise, mask-making workshops in the park will be cutting, pasting and painting non-stop Oct. 29 and 30 to help visitors adopt a Festival identity, one that can be kept and used on Halloween.

Continuous entertainment will be presented both days, featuring dancing troupes from every continent. The Kwa-Gulth Dancers of Fort Rupert, from Vancouver Island, Canada, will perform first at 12:30 p.m. Oct. 29, led by Chief Tony Hunt, a leader in the resurgence of Northwest coast art. At 3 p.m. on Oct. 29, Hunt’s group will demonstrate mask and totem-pole carving.

Also performing will be the Apache Spirit dancers and a group doing ancient Inca and Aztec dances.

One of the most popular attractions undoubtedly will be AT&T;’s phone booth, set up on the grass. AT&T;, a corporate sponsor, is offering free two-minute calls to any--and they mean any--place in the world.

The festival is free of charge; food and craft booths charge separately and receipts support nonprofit community groups; Hancock Park is at 5801 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles.

On the eve of the Festival, Bette Midler, honorary chairman of the Friday fund-raiser and a crafts collector, will be on hand not to make you laugh but to talk to other art lovers. She and they will get first crack at buying the finest work that more than 200 artists bring to the Contemporary Crafts Market in the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium.

Ceramics, Wood, Leather/ The show’s art includes ceramics, handblown glass, jewelry, fabric art, fashions, wood carvings, furniture, wood accessories, musical instruments and leather.

The preview party is the place for guests to wear authentic folk costumes--jingle fake gold bangles or strap on an antique sword and play cavalier.

Ann Hallatt, a mask maker who is the exclusive licensee for masks in the musical, “Phantom of the Opera,” will be present throughout the weekend, showing and selling her glistening, brightly painted, strangely lifelike caricatures.

Tickets at the Door

Droll wizened pixies, comic pig faces, poignant laughing clowns and sly animals are a few of the beings depicted by her amazing, wearable papier-mache masks.

Tickets are available at the door Friday night for $30 and include the catered dinner, wine and entertainment. Proceeds will benefit the museum. Guests who want to return to the Contemporary Crafts Market on Saturday or Sunday can use the ticket for a repeat visit.

All in all, the weekend events are an underlying expression of the museum’s serious artistic purpose. Ever since ancient man discovered that he could twist green twigs into baskets and knead sticky earth into bowls and jugs, craftsmen with an eye for design have been making everyday objects beautiful.

Carvers, weavers and their kin succeeded so well, in fact, that the handwork that critics used to dismiss as untaught or crude has been recognized as art.

Thus was born, in 1973, the Craft and Folk Art Museum.

For visitors who miss the Contemporary Crafts Market preview party Friday night, the show will continue Saturday (11 a.m.-8 p.m.) and Sunday (11 a.m.-5 p.m.). Tickets are $3 per person, children under 12 free.

The Santa Monica Civic Auditorium is at the corner of Main Street and Pico Boulevard. For information on the Contemporary Crafts Market, call (213) 556-5733. For further information about the museum or the Festival of the Masks, call (213) 934-8527.