As Mardi Gras marches full-force into Louisiana, the LSU School of Art is unmasking local artists’ unique takes on one of the hallmarks of the holiday.The School of Art’s Glassell Gallery hosted more than 70 Mardi Gras masks Tuesday, each decorated by an artist from the Baton Rouge community. Every artist received a blank mask and was encouraged to cut loose and let creative instincts take over.The creations went much further than sequins, glitter and purple, green and gold. Sea monsters, stamps and humorously decorated paper bags are just a few of the unique creations the artists paraded onto their masks, said Malia Krolak, gallery coordinator for the School of Art.The masks were auctioned with proceeds    going back to the School of Art. Donation totals will be tallied today or Thursday, Krolak said.Krolak said the artists relished the chance to put their own imaginative perspective on a holiday so ingrained in Louisiana’s culture.”Traditionally, [Mardi Gras] is your last big party before you have to give up chocolate for Lent,” Krolak said. “That ties into the creative community very well. It’s really a time for creative expression and freedom and a little bit of wackiness.”Krolak said many of the masks contain signatures that make the masks extensions of the themes in the artists’ work.”Elise Toups is a local artist who does a lot of portraits, and her mask has eyes on it, so when you put it on, it’s like you are an Elise Toups portrait,” she said.Meg Holford, assistant gallery coordinator at the School of Art, created a mask using correspondence the gallery received. She removed stamps from the envelopes and collaged them on the mask.”I wanted it to be different than the usual glittery, shiny, feathery mask,” Holford said. “I wanted to connect more to the traditional sort of art — less crafts, more fine art.”Many of the masks donated to the School of Art came from students at the University Laboratory School. Students created masks that ran the gamut from SpongeBob SquarePants to characters from the video game Halo, said Beverly Wilson, chair of the Lab School fine arts department.Wilson also joined the students in creating a mask, using pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. She said the mask was meant to be fun, but also has a deeper meaning to her.”I consider many aspects of my life as being many different things that interconnect — some of which you let your students know about, some of which are private and secret,” Wilson said.Wilson taught a lesson on masks from different cultures, highlighting the characteristics of masking in various societies.”We talked about how, culturally, all the way back from cavemen on, almost every society has had some masking traditions,” Wilson said. “Whether it served supernatural, spiritual or fantasy purposes, or, like Mardi Gras masks, to hide and conceal, this cultural thing has been going on.”Mardi Gras masks have morphed differently in various communities, said Maida Owens, director of the Louisiana Folklife Program, part of the Louisiana Division of the Arts. “There’s a reason why the towns have different types of Mardi Gras than the smaller, rural communities,” Owens said. “Mardi Gras will change and shift according to the values and priorities [of each community].”In some of the more traditional Mardi Gras celebrations, the mask’s function is the most important aspect.”The mask is integral to Mardi Gras, especially the Cajun Creole Mardi Gras, where you’re disguising your identity so you can approach your neighbor, and they don’t know who you are,” Owens said.Masks were originally made with whatever materials were available, said Carolyn Ware, associate English professor who studies folklore.”[Masks] were made and decorated with things people had easily available, like wire screen, table cloths, chicken feathers and corn cobs,” Ware said.Though masks differ from community to community, Ware said the most important aspect of them is the ability to change one’s identity.”They also allow us to play with ordinary rules of life and turn things upside down,” Ware said. “If you’re a man, your mask makes you a woman, animal or part of a                          different ethnic group.”Ware said communities make themselves unique by carrying out the same type of costume in different ways.”In Cajun Mardi Gras, when men dress as women, they do it in a way that it’s obvious they’re big, burly men, with their hairy legs sticking out of a dress,” Ware said. “In New Orleans, they’re much more convincing [as women].”—-Contact Ryan Buxton at [email protected]