How it started
It started in Siem Reap.
It started on an afternoon in Siem Reap. Our boys were sitting at a long wooden table, brushes in hand, painting their very first Hanuman at a small art session run for the kids of the neighborhood. When they finished, they wanted another. There wasn't another. Nobody, anywhere, was making them. So we did.
Blank Story is a small workshop in a quiet street here. Every mask is poured by hand into plaster moulds we know by touch — smooth, sturdy, finished without a line of color. They ship with five pots of water-based paint and a good brush. Lift the lid, start painting.
Each mask comes from a real tradition, researched carefully, never invented to look exotic. The collection starts in Southeast Asia and travels outward, season by season — Japan, Korea, Bali, Mexico, Peru. Every culture, every color, every story told with care.
A portion of every Hanuman sold goes straight to Ginge Novell — the man who runs free art sessions for the kids of his neighborhood — and to the local youth programs that started all of this.
With love, the editors.