Cubrebocas

I sold these out of a shopping cart.

A red cart, wrapped in a branded banner, pushed through the city with real paletero bells — bought off an actual paletero — ringing the whole way. “¡Cubrebocas! Masks for sale!”

The banner and the bells rode in the truck with me. The cart I had to procure fresh in every town — an adventure of its own. Four states, to the places that were actually living through this. Not one of them was a farmer’s market.

The paletero cart, hand-drawn

Three cities ran me off. The fourth one wasn’t even on the map.

  1. 01

    El Paso Texas

    Told, not asked

    Right on the border, outside the gates, working the main strip on foot. It went badly. I was told to sell them in Spanish, and it was not a suggestion.

    That’s why Cubrebocas is on this site at all. It isn’t decoration. It’s a correction I got handed on the street — and I took it.

  2. 02

    Phoenix Arizona

    Moved off the strip

    Heavy police presence. They pushed me off the main strip almost as fast as I set up — no pitch, no sale, nothing. I left the cart where I found it and pointed the truck at Albuquerque.

  3. 03

    Albuquerque New Mexico

    Got out clean

    Middle of a Breaking Bad episode. I went looking for a crowd and found one — a motel with twenty-odd people out front. So I pulled up, popped the trunk, hauled out the duffle bag and started working the crowd. Had two or three of them interested. Then I heard one of them turn to a friend and say go get the—

    “Let me grab some more styles.” Walked to the car. Gone. Narrowly escaped without having to drop my “mask.”

  4. 04

    Shiprock — Navajo Nation New Mexico

    Nearly sold out

    Three cities in, I was defeated. A day with no sales, then a night lost in the desert. I woke up on the shoulder of the highway with nothing left and pulled into the first gas station I could find. The woman behind the register bought a few and told me she loved them. That was the whole tank of gas I needed.

    I didn’t know where I was yet. I’d driven into the Navajo Nation — which at that point was being hit by COVID harder, per person, than anywhere else in the United States. Masks weren’t a style question there.

    I set up outside the village market and stayed in that parking lot for eight hours. Never stopped, never ate. People just hung around with me all day. Very nearly sold out — the best day of the whole tour.

    Turns out I’d spent months drawing in a language the place already spoke. Everyone was in old-school Echo and Southpole, and the artwork landed like it had been made for them. They carried me that day, and I have not forgotten it.

    Three cities ran me off and a desert lost me — and it put me in the one place that actually needed what I had. I’m glad I ended up there.

    I’ll be back.

Mask or Die — masked skulls tumbling down an Aztec pyramid
Drawn August 2021 On the road, between cities. Nobody was laughing yet.

The carts are long gone. The stickers are probably still up. The masks are still hand-drawn, still made to order, and still cost less than lunch.

Shop the masks

Mask on.