Art Heals: Hair

Many things have been growing during our time in isolation.  Growing impatience.  Growing waistlines. Growing outrage.  Growing skills.  Growing plants. Growing children, if you have them.   And hair.  Growing hair.   Business meetings can be conducted on Zoom.  Doctors and therapists have instituted virtual consultations. Teachers have taught algebra, baking, yoga, meditation, mask making.  But home haircuts, like home dentistry, is another matter entirely.   Not that we haven’t tried. Haircutting tips are the most searched for on YouTube and Google.  Big money has been spent online in the search for clippers and scissors (really not a good idea to use the scissors you use to cut apart the chicken; believe me, I know).

But why this urgency?  Why are flowing locks such an irritant in the midst of much greater concerns?  How did hair become a symbol of, well, a symbol of something?

Let’s ask Venus. (Not Williams, though I love her hair no matter how she wears it.) But Willendorf and Brassampouy, those two beauties of 30,000 BC. Their elaborately  styled  and braided coiffures rocked the Ice Age.  Hair served a purpose for men, too—Celtic warriors bleached their beards with lime—this somehow intimidated their enemies.  Samurai hairstyles created a nice secure nest for their helmets during combat (motorcyclists, take note). Roman soldiers’ short back and sides defined the military look for ages to come.  Long hair and natural hair became a political statement in the 60s, (and a Broadway musical).  “The way we wear our hair” became a statement of our identity.  It was a choice freely made, not dependent upon wealth.    We could care for our hair at home, as our mothers did with clippers and razors and oh Lord, bowls, when we were little.  And Clairol told us we were worth it as we struggled with the chemical balance of little bottles out of a box. But the caring for our hair became a social opportunity, as hairdressers and barbers filled a need for counselling, friendship and communication.  That was truly worth it.  That, I think is the urgency.  Haircuts are another form of touching, of caring, of communication that we have had to give up in isolation.  Sure, we want to look good.  And the hotter it gets, the more I want to cut my bangs.  But mostly, we want to go back to they days when shaping our locks shaped our camaraderie.  

It isn’t hair, but it makes me smile: a ceramic sculpture by Laurel Lukaszewski.  Art Heals.