More about my hair (and a little about Van Gogh). . .

. . .because on the heels of serious thoughts and moods come bouts of obsessive attention to the superficial. For example, I might call the time just after I successfully defended my dissertation and just before I got my first job the "Paint it Black" period. During PiB, I dyed my hair again and again and again until it was the darkest black to found in nature and or the imagination. I also re-painted multiple pieces of furniture black, and I began "Gully," my largest and most ambitious work of art in painting, an acrylic in deep blues and purples depicting an ominous mountain scene. A small village at the bottom is indeed threatened by the crazy ravine with water madly rushing through the center of the painting and toward the village church steeple. The water stops suddenly, close to the village, about three-quarters of the way down the painting. How does it stop, you may ask? Through the careful perspectival depiction of it slowing into a more gentle stream winding into the village? But no! That would rob it of its mystery. I would post a picture of it, but few understand it. Once you get past the impression that it may have been painted by a baby chimpanzee (purposeful, of course) and find the actual mountain and village within the highly original and transgressive mode of representing three-dimensional perspective, you feel vaguely uncomfortable and slightly confused--a probable sign that you are forever changed. I will post a picture of Van Gogh's "Ravine," which "Gully" brilliantly visually quotes in theory but of course looks nothing like in terms of composition, color, or style.



(By the way, did you hear that they recently found the lost Van Gogh, "Wild Vegetation," underneath "Ravine"? How cool is that?)

Anyway, back to my hair. Many of you offered me excellent advice in response to my recent hair query, and I have decided to go for the big dramatic rocker fringe/bangs. This can't happen for a few weeks, because this cut requires the services of my fancy and expensive hair stylist and because the coffers are currently pretty much, at least for hair purposes, empty. In the meantime I am collecting photos of the haircut translated to curly hair. Here is my inspiration so far.

This is the conceptual, hairstyle mag version:



I am not sure what is going on here. Is that a comb-forward? I can't tell how exactly the hair is cut. I also think this is not actual curly hair but rather fine straight hair with curling ironed spirals. Anyway, it gets at the look in theory.

Here's the real stuff, from some fabulous street fashion blogs (By the way, does everyone in Europe have the thick dramatic fringe/bang? Because from what I can tell they basically do):

My hair is not this short, but she is amazing and those are some big curly bangs . . .

image from Style Scout

This is a longer version, but I am not really digging the side-swept thing . . .


image from Style Scout

This next one is awesome. My curls are not this tight and so the bangs would not be this short, but I think the cut might be perfect . . .

image by Stockholm Street Style

By the way, I also found a picture of what I call my Imaginary Perfect Haircut. . .


image by Pike/Pine

You might also recognize it as Jean Seberg's in Breathless. . .


I have had this Imaginary Haircut (but only in my imagination) since I was about 19. When I walk down the street imagining I have the Imaginary Haircut, I am fierce. Because of the texture and curl of my hair, I do not believe I could pull it off in Real Life but I encourage any of you who could to go for it.

You might notice that my Imaginary Haircut is largely the opposite of the haircut I am planning to get. That's because my hair obsession is such that it can not be confined to cuts and styles I actually do wear or could wear. With the Imaginary Haircut, I can have at least two haircuts at any one time. (Yes, I know, the wig stage of my life can't be far behind.)