 He attended Otis Art Institute, and in 1954 enrolled at Chouinard Art Institute, where he became a student and close friend of ceramicist Peter Voulkos.The two rented a studio space together in 1957, which they shared until Voulkos moved to Berkeley, California in the fall of 1958.Mason's early Vertical Sculptures from the early 1960s were associated with contemporary trends in Abstract Expressionism and also with the aesthetics of primitivism.