Play·Time

A few weeks ago a friend and fellow artista posted this article on her FB feed.

I’m reposting this to make sure I keep it in mind.  Months back I did a post about Addy, the American Girl doll I’ve been holding onto for the past 15 years.  I’ve been wanting to give her a natural since visiting the AG salon and being told that their doll stylists could not give my Addy a hairdo that resembled mine.

Blogger, mother, and doll playing enthusiast Kristl Smith Tyler has graciously provided clear directions for how to give any doll a halo of her own.  Check out her site, How to Play with Barbies.  It’s amazing.  I especially like this post, where Kristl gives her daughter the Clark doll test (you know, the one where black kids prefer the white doll and think that black one is bad).  I’m really digging her most recent creation, the Hijabista model.  I want them all.

I’m assuming her method, which uses and handful of pipe cleaners and a pot of boiling water, will work on my Addy.  I can always send her away to the AG doll hospital for a new head if things get ugly.

Check out some of the beautiful photographs that HP swiped from the blogosphere:

This is how I looked through most of college.  A little grungy with a huge halo.

Wait…I still look that way.

Love and Enjoy!

Theories·of·Love |Soul Love|

I’ve been neglecting my love posts recently because I’ve been afraid to reveal where my journey has taken me.  I allowed myself to feel some shame about my lovescapade, which is not very loving at all.  Make no mistake, I respect and believe the viewpoints of the authors I’ve been reading lately, but I find that people like to make fun of books with titles like Soul Love.  I’ve always been a bit sensitive to teasing, so I eased up off the love stuff for a while.  Easing done.

A little over a month ago I went book hunting at Forest Books in the Mission where I picked up my very own copy of Foucault’s History of Sexuality: Volume I, Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie (the first novel I’ve read in quite sometime), and this book:

I want to start off by saying that this book is amazing.  It is more or less a series of guided meditations that are meant to awaken and connect you to your soul and heart centers.  Visualizations are a big part of this process, but later chapters delve into specific topics like attracting a soul mate, dissolving obstacles to love, or radiating love.  The author, Sanaya Roman, wrote the book with the assistance of a spirit guide who calls himself Orin.  She channels him.

From the preface:

Orin tells me he is a Being of Light.  He says he is working with us at this time because humanity is going through a major transition and awakening.  Orin has lived an earth life and is aware of the many challenges of living on the earth plane.  He says that he now “lives” on the soul plane and in even higher realms.  One of his purposes is to serve humanity.  Part of his service is to offer people a path of spiritual growth and to assist people in reaching their higher self and soul.  In this book he is offering you a way to awaken your heart centers and to live in you soul’s rhythm of love, serenity, and oneness.

Orin sounds like a Being I want in my life.  And as far out as all of this may sound, Orin and Sanaya’s book helped me further accept that love is our natural state of being as humans.  I saw so much of my views and beliefs in these pages: so much wisdom, so much compassion, so much empathy.

Reading this book meant I had to surrender societal beliefs about the visible and the tangible world I’m a part of and imagine, if just for a moment, that there is more to life than my body, my personality, my individual experiences, these walls, this ground, that sky.  A bunch of the visualizations encourage soul lovers to imagine their spiritual centers as jewels.  From the chapter Awakening your Heart Center, for example:

Like your soul, your heart center has a beautiful, exquisite central jewel surrounded by twelve petals, arranged in four rows of three petals each.  Some petals are open, some are partly open, and some are closed like a rosebud.  The jewel in the middle is hidden by the unopened petals.  When your heart center is fully awakened, all its petals unfold and its central jewel shines out in it’s full beauty.

Your soul and the Being of Love will assist you in viewing this jewel of your heart center.  As you look at it with your inner eyes, it is as if you are going to a sacred space within you.  Imagine the jewel in the middle of your heart center as a many-faceted diamond with light pouring out from within it.  All of the colors of the rainbow shine out from the facets of this jewel.  It is so beautiful that you feel more whole and complete just looking at it.  Imagine this jewel revolving slowly, with sparkling, shimmering light coming out of it.  Sense the essence of love flowing out through this diamond, each facet radiating a different quality of love.

It took me a little while to figure out what my soul’s jewel looks like.  Turns out it’s a black diamond.

Mmmm, pretty. From Core Jewels‘ Black Diamond Collection.

 Some other nice things from Core Jewels.

Triangles!

One of my favorite excerpts from the chapter Surrendering to Love:

People who love through their unevolved solar plexus center may try to control you.  They may use anger, disappointment, guilt, judgement, coldness, indifference, or criticism to get you to do what they want.  Or, they may try to control you by withdrawing their love.  You may find it challenging to follow your own path instead of doing what someone else wants you to do.  You may be so compassionate and loving that you want to please others by fulfilling their wishes.  Extend this wonderful compassion to yourself.  Your well-being and your life are more important than making other people’s personalities feel good.

As you awaken your heart centers and experience soul love, your love for others and for yourself increases.  You will respond to others’ actions with love, firmness, and clarity about how you want to be treated.  Soul love offers love to others, yet it does not require you to stay in an environment that is hostile or unsupportive.  You may physically remove or distance yourself from someone, yet you will do so with love.

It is interesting to watch people as they try different methods to implement control over other’s bodies and minds.  I’ll give an example now.  I recently visited my grandmother and step-grandfather, both in their late 80′s, at their assisted living apartment complex.  Over dinner, which is actually lunch, my grandfather leaned over and said, “Can I ask you a personal question.”  I hesitated, but told him he could proceed.  He went on to tell me that he thought I would be more attractive, more polished, if I “cut” my hair.  I think this was his way of saying, “your hair is too nappy, girl.”

This isn’t the first time we’ve had this conversation over the years.  I told him that I liked my hair the way it was, that it was easy for me to maintain and style, and that I wasn’t interested in spending the time or extra money it would take to make my hair look “polished.”  I told him that I kept it this way to please myself and no one else.  He seemed a bit taken aback by my response, said some more slightly offensive stuff, and then quickly changed the subject stating, “I brought it up, and I can put it to rest.”  Later, as my father and I were leaving, my grandmother grabbed me and started humming a doing a little dance (she was a dancer).  I moved along with her.  Her eyes lit up, she smiled, and she hugged me and kissed me and told me I was perfect….except for my hair.

I didn’t take their words too personally.  It’s obvious to me that my grandparents love me and there is no reason for me to react to their unkind words.  On some level, it is hurtful for my eldest family members to reject a part of me, especially a part of me that lots of other people like.  Even still, I don’t feel the need to change myself to please them.  My hair is amazing and brings so much light to the world.  It not only makes me happy, it makes other people happy too.  It literally defies gravity, standing on all ends, reaching out to everyone and everything.

I also realize that they are most likely repeating hurtful things that were once said to them.  Their thoughts and comments lead me to believe they probably have some not dealt with shame surrounding appearance and how they perceive it relates to opportunity in the world.  It’s hard for me to believe that they are still carrying those concepts around, especially cause they don’t have to.  They could just accept me, all of me, and in doing so, accept themselves.  The wounds must be deep.  They are just doing what they know.

So, I refused to accept their poison, and instead I offered a new perspective.  I let them know that how I look is up to me (this is a conversation I’ve had with plenty of older folks, specifically on the topic of my hair), and they are free to accept me as I am.

The chapter entitled The Serenity of Love teaches what soul loves feels like:

Soul love is serene because it is unconditional.  Your soul loves without needing to receive anything in return.  Soul love is a quality of being, a shining light that lifts, soothes, and comforts all who come within it’s sphere of influence.  Its love flows out generously and freely.  It does not measure how much love to give by how deserving people are.  Your soul offers love without needing appreciation, acknowledgement, praise, or reward for it’s love.  Soul love does not come and go based on the actions and reactions of others.  Your soul gives love to others without caring how they use this love or even if they use it.  Feel the serenity that comes from giving love without needing to receive anything in return.

And, from The Oneness of Love a chapter that describes the expansion of consciousness (head centers) that happens with heart awakening:

You can know your head center is awakening by your growing desire to make a difference, to add light to the world, to make a contribution and to serve in some way.  The desire to make a contribution does not come because it’s fashionable (What!?), because it will advance you spiritually, or from a desire for personal fame or recognition.  It does not come from a sentimental felling of wanting to make people’s circumstances better just because you do now want to feel bad as you think about them.  Assisting others does not arise out of pity.  It comes as a result of soul contact.

The messages in this book are comforting.  They offer a look into worlds that are unseen, and give us a space to love and be, to perceive and interact at a level that’s different from what we’re used to.  I have been better and worse at offering unconditional love, but I can say with all truthfulness that times I have been successful at giving it have been some of the happiest in my life.

All I have is my love of love.

Love and Enjoy!

The·Revolutionary·Theatre

A bunch of seemingly unrelated texts collided and materialized, on stage, in a play called Race by David Mamet.  I’ll use this post to explain the weeks leading up to me seeing the production.  I, for the first time in a long while, willingly gave a standing ovation.  This is a big deal.  In my 8 years of working as a theater technician and seeing countless shows, I gave only a few standing ovations, and most of those I did begrudgingly, out of obligation.

Several weeks ago I received a letter from my friend good friend Blake.  He’d found two pieces of literature while moving out of his house in Charlottesville, and sent them to me via snail mail.  There is nothing like getting a package from a friend in a far away place.  The gesture immediately warmed my heart.

The post-marked manilla envelope contained the essay The Revolutionary Theatre by Amiri Baracka, and The Tapestry: A Play Woven in Two, by Alexis DeVeaux.  My eyes blew through these two works with a force of ten thousand winds.

I’ve linked the text of TRT above, but what follows are some of my favorite excerpts.

    

This piece echos so many of the sentiments I’ve come across in the past year of working on this project.  The idea of possibility speaks to Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, the importance of the image that so many photographers speak of, the world being a stage and us it’s actors.  I find this essay very powerful.

From this I moved to Alexis DeVeaux piece, The Tapestry, which follows Jet, a young black woman who’s finishing law school and preparing to take the bar examination.  It’s a story of relationships, sex, friendship, and community.  Jet eventually finds herself in a less than ideal situation, the social dynamics she’s accustomed to having shifted significantly. DeVeaux uses intimate personal relationships to examine the politics of black womanhood because she believes that one must understand “what your place as an individual is and the place of the person who is close to you.  You have to understand the space between you before you can understand more complex or larger groups.”  She is “interested in presenting the black woman in relation to her eros, her sexuality.”  My kinda lady.

From original Broadway production.

So fast forward to last Wednesday, the 26th of October.  I get a message from my very good friend inviting me to see Mamet’s Race.  I initially said yes, but after reading a few reviews and digesting the plot – a rich white man has been accused of raping a black woman and a group of three lawyers, a young black assistant and two partners, one black, one white, clumsily end up defending the case – I start to freak out.  I realize that I have just accepted an invitation to see a play indicting black women’s sexuality with three to five white women, some of them lawyers.  It felt like a less than desirable situation.  One that I wasn’t ready for yet.  I sometimes get nervous and feel like I won’t be able to speak up for myself in situations like that.  I’m terrified of voicelessness.  So I backed out.  I flaked, and I decided to see the play on my own.  I’m not saying I’m proud of my decision or fearfulness, I’m just saying that I felt more comfortable about being able to deal with the subject matter on my own terms.

But of course, things turned out fine.  I laughed, I sighed, I thought Mamet somehow managed to confront important intra and interracial power dynamics in his special, minimal Mamet style.  I made eye contact with Susan Heyward, the black female lead, during curtain call.  I felt certain that she understood me completely.  She also rocked the cutest natural and power suit combination I have ever seen.  This is what I was happiest about.  The costume designer or perhaps the director or maybe even Susan herself chose to keep her hair natural.  Such a small decision, but in my mind an incredibly meaningful one.  The natural is commonly associated with radical militant black types, disco divas, Rastafarian culture, but never respectable professional women, especially not lawyers and businesswomen.  Her physical appearance totally challenged this.  Apparently you can have natural hair and be a lawyer.  This is great news.  The whole business of the sequin dress made me like the play even more.  Clothes always tell the tale.

Race extends the storyline of DeVeaux’s Tapestry.  I like to pretend that Mamet’s play is simply a continuation, and that we are following Jet as she matures and deals with new and ever-changing realities.

Watch interviews with the original Broadway cast of Race here.

Did Mamet just become a part of The Revolutionary Theatre?

Love and Enjoy!

Up·in·the·Hair

Sometimes I think my hair has super powers.  Those powers are only realized when my hair is in it’s largest from of afro.  Most days, when my hair is twists or covered up, the magic still works but it’s subtler.  When the fro comes out the effects are instantaneous.  My powers are a little different, not like normal superhero powers that give me an advantage over mere mortals.  When my hair is down I become transparent, people can read my mind.  I’ve had this happen on a number of instances.  I don’t even have to speak and people know what I’m thinking and they give me exactly what I want or need.  It’s a weird power to have.  Giving people access to my mind seems like it would make me feel vulnerable, but it’s an amazing way to live.

I’ve been thinking a lot about stories about hair, and the first that came to mind is the one about that guy in the bible whose hair gave him super strength.

The above clip is from a video series called The Greatest Adventure: Stories from The Bible, which I used to view on the regular because I grew up a Jehovah’s Witness and this is what I was allowed watch.  I remember liking the stories in the Old Testament.  They’re gangsta.  The Jay Dubbs publish a book for children called My Book of Bible Stories.  The story of Sampson and Delilah was one of my favorites, along with the story of Jezebel.  I liked Jezebel because she had on makeup and sparkly things.  Preeeety.

And while I’m on the topic of stories about hair, I recently rediscovered the series hosted and produced by Shelly Duval (of The Shining) called Faerie Tale Theatre.  This is what’s been missing from my life!  It’s amazing to watch fairy tales as an adult.  When they’re done well they can be playfully dark, overtly sexual, and unexpectedly subversive.  I will probably be featuring several episodes on the blog over the next few weeks.  I’m particularly interested in those stories which involve some type of craft (spinning seems to be the most common artisan activity engaged in by female protagonists), or the illusion created by clothing.

Here is a link to FTT’s rendition of Rapunzel, which is especially good.

Short Analysis of Rapunzel

Theme: Hair (but really sexuality, right?  Hair always references sex in some way.)

Craft: Weaving (silk pieces for a ladder to escape the tower.)

Let down your hair!

Love and Enjoy!

Between·the·Sheets |Hairotica|

Last Saturday I ended up at a nightclub called Vertigo with a bunch of coworkers, and I unexpectedly had one of the most erotic experiences of my life.  I give my hair the credit.

I’ve been wanting to write a post about black women and their hair, but had the idea that I might want to approach it from a different direction because our “naps” are such a sensitive topic.  Saturday night gave me great fuel for approaching in from an erotic perspective, one that was barely touched on in the books I’ve read about power as they relate to black women’s beauty.

I think the big unspoken (and the big misconception) is that many black women believe that the texture of their hair will determine what kind of life experiences they will be able to have.  We worry about what kind of jobs we will be able to get if we don’t straighten our hair, we worry about who will accept us, and most of all, many black women and men have internalized the belief that “nappy” hair is never sexy.  This makes us worry about what kind of partners we will be able to seduce if we are completely ourselves, if we let people see how kinky we really are.

So back to Saturday.  I decided to go out and have a few drinks with some coworkers.  One, led to two, two lead to Chinese food, which somehow led us to a nearby dance floor.  I was hesitant to attend cause I say I’m not the club type.  But, “what the hell,” I thought.  One of my coworkers is moving away soon, I have been working on getting more in touch with my body by taking dance classes and yoga, and it’s no fun to be the party pooper, so I went with it.

While we were waiting in the line to enter the club two young, black men struck up a conversation with me.  It was about my hair, which I had been wearing “nappy” all week (the very expensive conditioner I bought is doing nothing for my hair now that it’s gotten longer, and I haven’t had the time or interest to invest in another product, so my hair gets to do it’s thing for the next few weeks).  They asked me how long it had taken me to grow my hair out.  I told them I had been natural since I was 13.  We joked as we entered the club that I was about to sweat my hair straight.  It surprised me that two men of color had as many questions about my fro than any white person I’d spoken to about my tresses in the past week (people ask me about my hair a lot.  I actually don’t mind this at all).

The club was dark.  We found a place to stash our bags and jackets, and carved out a section of the dance floor on a little go-go platform where lots of people were grooving to music pumped from a well concealed DJ booth.

A small, sturdy man with a wavy ponytail gave my hair a squeeze as he danced.  I was reminded of an interaction earlier in the evening.  A man looked in my eyes with an expression of absolute recognition, telling me that he loved my hair.  My friends and I thought for a split second that he knew me from somewhere, that’s how genuine the expression looked.

I decided not to get offended about the hair touch, we were in a club and people were drinking, no big deal.

So there is this thing, that I’m sure y’all are aware of, where black women don’t like their hair to be touched.  People have been touching my hair my whole life.  I had really, really long straight hair (chemically processed) as a kid, and people were always touching it.  And for whatever reason, my mother and her sisters (who had what many would consider “good hair”) never made it a point to teach me that people can’t just touch your hair.  There were other things going on that were more important.

I actually learned about what I’ll call “bad touch” from white feminists, who asked me why I wasn’t offended when people touched my hair, and let me know how it was a holdover from slavery, people feeling entitled to touch your body in anyway they wanted, yadda, yadda, yah.  I can accept those viewpoints as true, but what they leave out is that it feels so good when people touch your hair.  It feels to good to be touched, period.  Granted, there are limits, and people can easily cross boundaries, I’m no stranger to those experiences, but I feel that it is just as important to experience touch as a positive.  When we as black women get angry about strangers touching us and thinking that it relates to the idea that everyone sees us as property or prostitutes, we are also, in another sense, denying ourselves from experiencing other things.

Anyhow, this young man, with the wavy ponytail, couldn’t get over my hair.  He was fascinated, and I have to admit, I was fascinated by his fascination.  We danced, his hands leaving my sweaty, frizzy, lopsided, tore up, nest of naps only when he wanted to hold my hands, or give me a spin.  It was amazing.  No one has ever spent that much time with my hair, with their hands on my hair, with their fingers entangled, with an expression of excited adoration on their face, fully engaging with all that I presented on that night.  He told me, “I neva zee air like zis en France.”  And I had never French kissed, so we did, on the sweaty dance floor, with the lights, in the center of a crowd.  He also told me about the recording artist, Ayo, and this song, which accurately summed up my feelings from that night:

I realize that this story is as complicated as it could be, but from a different perspective it’s fairly simple.  It’s about desire, and to be desired is powerful.  I don’t know what that French man did to me, but at closing time after the lights came on, and people were scrambling to find jackets, finish drinks, and avoid security, several gentlemen must have picked up on my energy, that I was feeling desired.  I got invitations, little touches, whispers in the ear, some hand grabs, and even a conversation from an enthusiastic wingman, all asking me to give them a little bit of attention.  And I realized that I was the one who got to make the choice.  And, my hair hadn’t magically straightened during the evening.  It was nappy as ever.  That was empowering.

Love and Enjoy.

Click here to find the next post in the Between·the·Sheets series.

Model·Articles |Pretty·Girls·Riot|

Article·of·Inspiration |Sonya Clark|

As an artist, Clark is concerned with the function of objects in material culture and makes works that engage and consider the life span of the objects as well as their heritage and legacy.

This is Sonya Clark.  She is the current chair of the Craft/Material Studies Department at Virginia Commonwealth University.  I was this close to meeting her last year (at least in my mind), but we never managed to connect before I left The Commonwealth.

She really speaks my creative language, working in non-traditional media like hair (including her own), combs, beads, copper, and money.  Her work definitely helps blur the line between art and craft, something I’m in total support of.

She also directed an amazing effort called the Beaded Prayers Project, which collected beaded pouches containing wishes from people around the world.

Community.  Art.  World.  Hair.  I’m in love.

As the story goes, she cultivated her appreciation for the handmade from her grandmother, who was a professional tailor (no surprises there).  Much of her work makes ideas that I’ve been mulling over for the last five years irrelevant.  Oh well, there will always be more ideas, or at the very least, variations on themes.  That I can count on.

Black Hair Flag

Afro Abe

Hair Hat

Conceptual Textile of Woven Combs

Thanks to Browning Porter for introducing me to her work!

Love and Enjoy.

Click here to find the next post in the Article·of·Inspiration series.