We’re excited to announce that OffBeat’s online store is now carrying the limited edition 2015 Mardi Gras spirit mask print by colorful local artist Amzie Adams. The 12×15 poster features a hand-crafted Balinese mask over an original Amzie Adams painting, and each copy is signed by the artist.

We talked to Adams about how he got started and his artistic process as a painter, mask-maker, and photographer.

“I started a long time ago, 1980 or something, painting faces for Mardi Gras,” said Adams. “I started painting faces and bodies, and after Mardi Gras was over I got a little depressed because it had all been so much fun. So I asked myself, how can I paint faces when it’s not Mardi Gras? And I said, well, I’ll make masks, and I’ll paint their faces. So that’s what I did. I started making masks and selling them. And then the next year, there was this guy who saw a bunch of my masks in the window of a kite shop in Jackson Square, and he took photographs. And then he made a Mardi Gras poster out of my masks, and it said ‘Masks by Amzie Adams’ at the top. But he didn’t give me a penny! He totally ripped me off! So I was P.O.’d, and I’m like, ‘what am I going to do?’”

Adams found the solution.

“Well,” he explained, “I went ahead and made a poster of my masks, because I thought, ‘if this guy can make a poster of my masks and sell them, then I can make a poster of my masks and sell them!’ And I did. And I sold them all out like in three weeks. Now it’s evolved where I do spirit portraits. I paint the person’s face in relationship to their spirit, and I make a poster of it. And sometimes I make a mask and put it on top and paint it, so there’s the face, the painted mask, and the painting of the mask on one poster. Sometimes now I cast people’s faces. I make a plaster cast, and then I make a mask that fits that and goes right on their face.”

Don’t miss out! There are only 500 copies available. They cost $30-$50 and are available here.