Ellen Lowentstein is a sculpture instructor on the faculty of Skyline College in San Mateo County where she has taught for 18 years and occasionally instructs at UC Extension, San Francisco (The Artist's Studio). She has exhibited her sculpture throughout California, including at the Triton Museum, Santa Clara; the San Diego Museum of Art; the Palm Springs Desert Museum and the Palo Alto Cultural Center. The focus of her sculpture has been primarily figurative, using various materials, including stone, clay, plaster and wax.

Thoughts:

I began this mask very shortly after completing a large painting called "Bird Dreams." The painting expresses a sense of the physical place I inhabit-which is inhabited as well by ravens. In the process of working on the painting, more personal, inner feelings and experiences also came to be incorporated. In this mask, I used many of the same elements and symbols that are in the painting. I am so pleased to have been invited to participate in the Hospice Mask Project. It is a wonderful feeling to be able to help those in need through this impractical thing called art.