my younger days...NY TIMES

aside from my dumb quote I was still in the times...

Highlighting Hair, Women's Ultimate Crowning Achievement

By MARJORIE KAUFMAN

Published: Sunday, March 13, 1994

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"Hair has always reflected the society that it belongs to, and especially in Africa it has different styles and meanings," Ms. Sherbell wrote in her statement. "Heads are covered, veiled, shaved, braided, adorned with medals, painted with animal fat or covered with cowry shells, as in my sculpture, to signify female sexuality and currency. All the designing has to do with the inextricable practice of ancestral and spirit worship from religious rites to the rite of passage."

Because the African cowry shells cannot be taken out of Africa she used shells from the Philippines. The elaborate sculpture makes a statement about how a woman presents herself. "With a head of shells she is an important person in her group," Ms. Sherbell said.

1. Alex Gardega of Huntington, who attended the School of Visual Arts and the Fashion Institute of Technology, has been etching glass for six years, much of it relating to mythology. Drawn to the subject of Medusa he began experimenting with oil paint and etching on glass to create between the hair and the face "just enough tension between the two."
2. Mr. Gardega's Medusa poses the question: "What if a woman with a normal face had such awful hair? What if she had classical beauty, how would she be looked at? How much are women today judged by something they have limited control over?"
3. He chose to paint a peaceful Madonna-like face contrasted by serpent hair, placing her as a victim of the snakes. Perhaps, he said, that would make people look for a deeper meaning.

A monotype print of a kabuki actor and onnagata, Tamasaburo Bando, is a subject for Susan Carter Carter of Port Jefferson, a printmaker who is also an adjunct professor of art at Suffolk Community College. "In kabuki just a few strands of hair out of place can convey distraught emotions," Ms. Carter Carter said. "I elaborate on that and use the hair as a compositional device."