Fly Your Own Thing
1968
While a professor at the University of Washington (1949-81), Mason taught a young budding artist, Chuck Close, and formed a friendship that continues today. Mason recalls that Close, a 1962 graduate, was invited back in the late 1960s as a visiting artist. While there, Close offered Mason the use of his airbrush, a device originally designed to retouch photographs, but nevertheless a suitable tool for painters to experiment with in their work. In Fly Your Own Things, Mason used pencil, oil crayons and the airbrush to articulate the playful and wildly fantastical forms.
Air-brushed pigments, pencil, and oil crayon on paper, board-mounted
23 13/16 x 28 3/4 in. (60.5 x 73 cm)
Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection
68.199
Provenance: The artist; purchased by the Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA, Oct. 1968