Here Megan is shorn by one of the town barbers. Julia, another student, snaps the photo.Four months later, Julia posts something on the Internet along the lines of "You will look great with short hair" and asks those reading to send her the clippings. I am struck by the stealth tactic: flattery, and then request.
Julia has begun an investigation around hair and gender and the forms that tip the material and the sex towards and away from one another. I wonder if her fascination started with the woman in the barbershop in the desert or did it start before that? Will there be a through line? Before the class, she apprenticed with a shoemaker and made a singular shoe. After the class, she apprentices with a wig maker. She is gravitating towards the end of bodies to what avail?
Later Julia writes: " I started out only wanting to make wigs with Orthodox Jews, but then I decided to expand the project. Yesterday I had my first lesson with the wig-makers for the Metropolitan Opera. It was great. It is a lot like crocheting, but more tedious. I think I am getting the hang of it. I am going to work with a woman in Boro Park who styles wigs for the Orthodox women in that area as well. I am anticipating some kind of sculptural project coming out of this, but I am not sure exactly what that will look like. The topic is so loaded..."
Photograph by Julia Sherman
