"Hair Love"
Untitled 2012, "Hair Love" 2019
Medium: Thick Cardboard paper, paper towels and recycled paper scapes, Liquitex Modeling Paste, old synthetic curly puffs from the hair store, acrylic paint, white gesso, pencil to sketch
Process: I completed this piece in my last year of high school! I drew out the girl and used the modeling paste to create the texture within the hair and face. I used the modeling paste to form hairbows with scraps of paper towels crumpled up and glued. This piece is now in a friend's home!
I later recreated this process with a group of young ladies as a positive, affirming project, and they loved it! (IOP -Instruments of Praise, I Love You!!)
Subject: It's a Saturday night or early Sunday morning ritual, before church, to get your hair hot comb. If you were lucky, the following day, you'd get to wear your thick, straightened hair down, or it'll end up in twists and bows. The sizzle and smell of warm leftover hair in the comb would fill the kitchen. You slightly embrace momentary discomfort as you sit between your mother's thighs, trying to avoid getting your ears kissed with the hot brass comb. Oh, but if when that comb grazes your ear, tinkles fill your body, sweat beads up on your eyebrows, edges, and armpits. Tears would weld up as you involuntarily jerk forward.
"Ouchhhhh," screeches from your lips, like old car brakes!
"Whaa's the matter wit you--stop moving…" Mom looks cross at you as she wipes her greasy, red, heat-stricken hands on the old towel draped over her knees.
"Maaa MY EARRRRRR...", You whimper, trying not to cry and sweat your laid edges.
"Go'on gets the butter," Mom's voice softens with a gentle ease a little…she points to the refrigerator door. She rubs the Chucky cold yellow home remedy on the sore spot. You winced. "Now come here… you'll be fine… let's finish. We ain't gonna be here all day…"
Black hair is a constant learning process! To all the naturals, 4c is tightly coiled and thick, where the shrinkage is absolutely real. DO NOT GIVE UP… I am with you! It has taken years to look in the mirror at my reflection and say, "I love my hair," and mean it. From a young age, I would get my hair "hot combed" and then graduate to the perm; some would say it was a rite of passage for a black girl. On to the microbraids, then the short cut phase, back to the box braids/ twist/ dreads, then the big chop #theNATURALmovement. Every texture and product feels like a fingerprint; no one has the same hair texture. What works for your sista may not work for your hair. Going natural is not easy, but it takes dedication, practice, drinking lots of water, moisturizing, and doing what's best for your fro! Black girl’s hair is a story all by itself.
(Written Apr/May 2020)
One of my Favorite Children's books:
Hair Love by Matthew Cherry , with a cute video by Sony Animations!
