Face painting brings discoveries

Press, 2 December 1987, Page 21

Face painting brings discoveries

VIVIENNE SHAKESPEAR, a University of Canterbury journalism student, at first sceptical in the best sense of being a reporter, becomes a convert to face painting.

In rainbow-coloured robes and long dark hair, Zorma Margarett resembles a gipsy prophet. She is happy to be a colourful Christchurch presence, and knows what it is to be uncomfortable with being looked at. She spent most of her earlier life as a "very shy person." Face painting for her is a “happy coincidence of artistic ability and helping people feel good about themselves.” It is both a festive and therapeutic art form — how the wearer experiences his .or her transformation is as important as the visual impact it makes. Out of her three-year apprenticeship in face painting, Zorma has developed what she calls “nurture touch,” a "non-threaten-ing" form of massage centred on the face, scalp and neck. She is careful not to overwhelm people with more than they would feel comfortable with.

Overdoing something could be more damaging than not doing it at all, she says. If someone is nervous about having their face painted, she begins by doing a small design “like a piece of embroidery” on the cheek. Once they are used to it, they usually want more.

Zorma has worked with blind children. When asked if it isn’t cruel to paint the faces of children who cannot see themselves, she says she does not think they should miss out on the tactile experience of one-to-one contact with another person. Children are very receptive to face paints and “dress-ups," she says. They are part of discovering who they are. In our society, adults are expected to know who they are (“and if they don't they jolly well should!”) Face painting helps them to acknowledge and indulge the child in themselves. Some expect to be “freed” by wearing a mask, she says. “But rather than hiding, their personality flowers through it” v I first met Zoom earlier this

year at the Christchurch Peace Festival in Rangiora. I asked to take her photograph. Later that day, she painted my face and found a convert. I made several unnecessary stops to busy supermarkets on the way home to share my colourfully-flowering personality. Visiting her at home on an early summer Sunday afternoon is like enterirife the “story space”

she has created for a range of characters to fill. All around the room are toys, masks, drums, cymbals, tambourines, lots of jelly bean colours and a little pegboard spelling out the word “play.”

Zorma is working on a series of character masks to match the list of names she has already written down. One mysterious mask developed as a “partner” to a portrait sketch she made last year. When the project is completed, she imagines displaying the masks in a hall; she may even venture into a kind of off-beat fashion parade with appropriate garments teamed with the masks. It is a process of discovery, of “becoming,” she says. To make way for change, you have to “unbecome” a little, too.

Zorma Margarett found her vocation almost by chance. She was “caused to do it.” A friend asked her to paint children’s faces at a 1984 community fair, “somehow thinking I’d done it before.” Her background is in commercial art, as a showcard and sign writer. She found her interest in art and community activities encapsulated in “this activity called face painting." The following August holidays, she did her first work as a “professional” face painter. Cheerfully coloured children’s faces (and thosef-of any adults

brave enough) brought a touch of fiesta to Christchurch Square during a grey winter. On her first day she worked without a break between noon and 4 p.m. “so engrossed in what

I was doing that when it was time to go my body had almost forgotten how to stand up,” she says. That Christmas she worked for Christchurch’s “Summer

Times” programme, going straight on to attend the first Fringe Festival, an intensive five days of workshops. The next day, she travelled with Mary and Kerry McCammon, of Natural Magic, to Hokitika; they were artists in residence at Seaview Psychiatic Hospital for a month. It is a time of festivity she remembers warmly. Photographs of their end-of-stay festival show elderly women linking arms in unself-conscious dance. The therapeutic power of dance is something sadly lacking in a lot of people’s lives, she says. The hospital recreation officer wrote of her expertise in face painting: "The joy Zorma created with this was wonderful to observe.” She has since worked in festivals, product promotions and theatre. There have been spells when there has been little work; she regards them as a test. “Was this what I really wanted to be doing — shouldn’t I be trying something more realistic?” Now the face painting and nurture touch are her vocation. She has not established a yearround venue, somewhere people could come on a Friday or Saturday night before a party, but that is a possibility. This year, she has been involved with the Court Theatre’s School for Clowns, the March for Education (organised by the University of Canterbury), some festivals (including the Alexandra Blossom Festival, where she was filmed for television’s “Playschool”) and a mask theme night at the Palladium. Her immediate future is well booked.

Zorma Margarett thinks her artistic growth has coincided with developments in the community. For instance, “Summertimes” and its prelude, “Spring’s Here,” are regular features on the calendar. There is a lot happening in Christchurch. “It’s where I’m meant to be."

Interest began with children