Such is the nature of my new work, an offshoot of my years of interest in hair and social politics tangled with class, and urban-futurism, these new works begin where my wigs and costuming end. Committed to utilizing materials to construct my performance wigs and found objects, I build organic objects that respond to pressure, chemical and physical reactions, and impulse, conflating low with high material, excess, and mutations as a result of the former. Echoing the forms of majestic live oak trees bountiful in the south, they are silent witnesses to enduring injustice and heartache. Simultaneously, through painting, photography, and drawing I reflect on the beautiful accidents that occur in both my constructions and the nature that they mimic.
Like nature, the work can no longer be contained.
My Wig Variants series has opened a new way for me to engage viewers, holding space for my body in exhibition spaces. My worries as a middle-aged woman of color mean simply not making it back home to my child after a performance because I was injured, or worse, by someone feeling emboldened to “correct” me as a reaction to my work.
This has dramatically impacted how I move and practice. When considering how to adapt public works amid a pandemic, and social and political upheaval, I found myself thinking deeply about how nature endures and adapts under extreme pressure, albeit sometimes disfigured. I thought, “what if my wigs could take my place? What if they mutated and could exist beyond me, like the plants in my garden?”