Lord #2. Plaster bandage, paper clay, mixed media painted with acrylics. Half mask. Part of the Sun Serpent Series.

Male figure with Aztec Mesoamerican inspired headdress. Carved feathers on top painted red and green. Gold and turquoise and jade colored decorations along the crown, forehead, and sides of the headdress. Large gold earplugs carved on sides with hanging gold painted plates.

The Sun Serpent was a play produced by Childsplay, directed by Rachel Bowditch performed at Tempe Center for the Arts in 2011, and funded through a grant from the National Endowment of the Arts.

Artist and sculptor Zarco Guerrero made about 30 masks for the performance. All of the masks were made directly on the actors to better fit them during the performance.

Story of The Sun Serpent:
When young Anáhuac’s family meets the newly-arrived Cortés, they believe he is the Sun Serpent, come to usher in a new, better world. Anáhuac’s beloved elder brother eagerly joins Cortés’s grand march to the capital Tenochtitlan. But while Cortés promised a world of peace and plenty, the soldiers he left behind soon engage in a ruthless search for gold.

Orphaned during one of their raids, Anáhuac sets off through the jungle to find and warn his brother that the Spanish are not what they seem. Along the way, Anáhuac discovers that the omnipotent Aztec ruler Motecuhzoma is unable to protect his people against the Spanish. As the certainties in his world begin to crumble, Anáhuac must physically and mentally navigate through the land of the familiar (Aztec prophecies, sky dancers, jungles) and the frightening but intriguing possibilities of the new (Spanish horses, guitars, ships).

Faced with the realization that neither leader is divine and neither culture is without merit, Anáhuac watches as Motecuhzoma and Cortés come face to face for the first time.