RAW artist interview transcript

My name is Timothy Stephens and I’m a Seattle-area mask artist. I make papier-mâché and mostly leather masks.

I started out making a lot of stuff at home in the basement, and it got to be so much stuff that my wife told me I should get that stuff out of the house and start selling it, so that’s kind of how it started.

Most of the work I do is leather. It’s custom-made pieces where I soak a flat piece of leather in water and then I wring out the fibers to break it down and form it over a hard form, and then as it dries it keeps its shape, and I finish them with acrylic paint or airbrush paint.

So the pieces I have tonight vary from greenman forms to sort of fire forms. I’m inspired a lot by elements in nature; fantasy, carnival-type themes, animal themes you’ll see some cats, butterfly forms. I just like color and structure. They’re made to be worn, they’re made to be comfortable, and they’re made to be fun and to have some sense of humor to them.

I would love to find that niche market where I’m able to create on a more ongoing basis, and really kind of make more of a living at it. That would be awesome. I would love to do more events like this; I would love to network more with other artists in the community here in Seattle.

I’ve done a lot of custom-made work for parties, masquerades, performance artists, so I’m just trying to network a little bit with other artists and with people interested in my work.

My name is Timothy Stephens and I’m a RAW artist.