Rapunzel, human and synthetic hair, cowhide, lighting elements and other media, 80″ x 20″ x 20″, 2011

This is one of the cake-shaped sculptures I made during the period of time from 2010 to 2011. The idea eventually ran its course for me and this was the last cake sculpture I made. Because the whole series was basically about our weird cultural connections and reactions to certain objects or materials, on one level Rapunzel is about our obsession – sometimes to the point of fetishization – with hair. But on another level, hair is an innately beautiful material in all its different colors and textures; human, animal or synthetic, long or short, straight, wavy or curly, silky or rough, the variation is endless. As children we learn to care for our own hair and to enjoy the processes of combing, brushing, braiding and also to realize that the appearance of our hair is a powerful modifier of how we want to present ourselves to the world. There is a lot more information packed into the expression, “Having a bad hair day,” than we usually think about. Recently, someone said to me, in a discussion about how expensive salon treatments have become, “It’s only hair.” My thoughts were 1) HERESY, and 2) Oh, my sweet summer child, hair is never only hair.

About the creative process – obviously I needed to obtain a lot of raw material in the form of wigs, falls, extensions, etc. to use in the creation of the piece and wasn’t sure where to start. I was able to find some materials, such as the cowhide, on ebay. In 2011, Amazon hadn’t become quite the genie’s lamp to grant all shopping wishes that it’s become today, but it yielded some useful stuff. I searched around and found a store not too far away from me called something like “Hair World,” and went there. It was a big store with amazing variety, but the most surprising thing to me was that there were a couple of very large, muscular Asian men in suits standing guard over the hair.  It felt weirdly contemporary Arabian Nights-ish, as if they should have had turbans and scimitars to complete the picture. The clientele in the store that day was 100% female and we were all about half the height of the two guards as we scurried around like some misbegotten harem stuffing hair of all descriptions into plastic shopping baskets. I assume the store had experienced a problem with theft requiring the presence of guards? Which says interesting things about the value of the hair and the lengths to which people are willing to go to obtain it.

I did find what I needed and bought a good amount of hair in different colors and textures. That must have been unusual, because the cashier had questions about what I was going to use it for; i.e., “What you going to do with all that hair?” When I tried to explain it was for an art project, she appeared befuddled.

My last observation about this piece – the cowhide I bought on ebay had a strong odor to it. Possibly it hadn’t been properly tanned? It wasn’t necessarily an unpleasant odor, but it was a ripe, gamey, very “animal” kind of smell. When the piece was completed and on display, when you stood next to it, the smell because part of the experience. I felt like it accidentally made the point that hair is one thing we have in common with other mammals and no matter how much we brush, comb, tease, torture our hair and make it into elaborate constructions such as this sculpture, we are still just another mammal.