Sonya Clark is a fiber artist who uses her own hair as her medium. She weaves human hair – black women’s natural hair – onto canvases, the backs of chairs, into jewelry and even mixing it up with the red, white and blue of the Stars and Stripes. Who would’ve guessed that our kinky hair could express itself as beautifully off our head as on it.
It was able to do so in Clark’s expert hand, and with her imagination and creativity. I read about her in an article in my local newspaper a few weeks ago. Her brand of art may sound unusual, but it is similar to what some artisans were doing during the Victorian era – creating jewelry from human hair.
I wrote a blog post about it in August after having come across a small red paper box at auction with the inscription “Hair Jewelry. Madame K. Schmitt.” I thought it was referring to jewelry for the hair until another auction-goer explained that it was jewelry made from hair. That was a very strange way to create jewelry, I thought.
I learned from my research that hair jewelry was very popular during the Victorian period, and that Madame Schmitt was a well-known maker of it in Philadelphia during the mid- to late-19th century. People made the jewelry at home or bought it from shops like Madame Schmitt’s. It included earrings, bracelets and chains, or brooches that held snips of hair hidden away inside.
Clark’s pieces were more artistic, cultural – and sometimes political. She has exhibited them at museums in the Northeast and Europe. She also creates art with beads, black plastic combs, copper and cloth. Take a look at some of her works.
She said that her hair art expressed her identity as an African American. I wonder what Madame Schmitt would make of that.
