Mandey X On View Gallery
Some things need to be seen in person. That’s how I found myself at Mandey’s home on a late Monday night, sitting around her kitchen table, deciding if her big framed paintings were a match for studio128. The paintings were propped up against the wall in the living room and I would glance at them in disbelief. My eyesight is poor without glasses on and from a distance, I’d swear they were made out of paint. Getting up, I’d walk over, and stand as close as I comfortably could. I say that because the hair on the back of my neck stands up a bit over the fact that the paintings are actually made out of hair.
But what could be more appropriate for All Hallows’ Eve season than a painting you can’t look away from and also leaves you a bit creeped out?
I asked her if that was a normal reaction from people. Bubbly and happy as always, Mandey agreed that’s one common reaction to her work. It didn’t seem to bother her at all that I’d asked but she did go on to explain how everything began for her, her fascination with parts of ourself that we leave behind in life and the community connection to a piece like this. Check out our conversation below...
Q.) In what ways did you decide to incorporate performance art and community participation into the First Thursday Artwalk event?
A.) I love interaction in art and for community members to really share in an experience! For this show people have the opportunity to clip a piece of their hair and place it into a small glass vile to wear as a necklace or keep in a special place at home.
I will be doing a live performance at the opening with an empty frame hanging at head height near a wall. I will dance behind the frame- creating a live hair painting! Anyone at the opening also has a chance to create their own moving hair painting video or photo!
Q.) How did you come up with the concept for The Hair Show?
A.) The Hair Show started small with simply collecting my own hair four years ago. I started labeling the hair with dates and what I was doing when that hair was accumulating, collecting my friends hair and displaying the hair in my studio. I was collecting out of love for all things natural and intrigued by the accumulation of everyday human materials. I started speaking with my friends and family about it, and my grandmother told me she had been saving her very first hair cut. She sent me those seventy year old braids in a box with her daughters’ first hair cuts, too. I realized hair spoke about the human experience, not just to me as an artist, but to everyone. It is sacred. It has been treasured and used in expressing the human experience for thousands of years. It has its own language. Cutting hair is an act of letting go, releasing the old, being born into someone fresh and new. Hair collects energy, much like it collects smells from your experiences- like after a night by a campfire. Hair has a lot to say. Visually, and physically, hair is an extension of your thoughts. Everything you have ever thought has been caught in your hair and displayed for everyone to read.
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Q.) What lesson, if any, have you learned from this series?
A.) I learned to keep going with a project and really allow it to grow and mature. There was really a point in this work where it felt like it took on a life of its own, and that is such an awe inspiring experience.
Q.) Why Do You Make This Type of Art? Why are you drawn to this subject?
A.) I want to use materials that are natural, that I would be able to use if I lived off the land. Hair is so innate to humans and animals. The body creates this material naturally, and I am interested in taking these natural materials out of their everyday context-to offer a new way of everyday life and thought.
Q.) What Does Your Artwork Represent? Does your art represent something about you?
A.) I have the drive to really allow creativity to show me things I’ve never seen before. Especially with things we see and interact with everyday.