"Hair work", anyone grossed out by the idea (details inside)

This is probably a bit of an overreaction, but I gotta go with my gut, it instantly put me in mind of the Nazis. Harsh, but honest opinion.
I wonder if that work has been shown in a pubic gallery.

Creepy.

I don’t find Victorian mourning hair art to be gross or creepy.

When my brother passed away, I kept a locket of his hair. And left a locket of mine in his casket.

I don’t feel the need to make it into something that I can look at every day (like art). Or something to be worn on my person (like jewelry). But I can certainly understand it.

I don’t see it as any worse than a whole lot of other things. Different strokes for different folks. It’s not MY thing, but who am I to judge someone else’s taste?

I’ve seen it for real. They have some examples of it in one of our historical museums. It made me feel sick to my stomach. I thought it was very creepy. Not much different than preserving a body part, putting it in a frame or a glass case and calling it art.

On the other hand, I have a lock of my cat’s hair in a bag, we had him cremated and the company gave us a clipping of his hair, a foot print in clay, along with his ashes. We consider it a memorial, but it is not something I would want to turn into artwork. I think that would be disrespectful. I have the lock of hair in a special box in a drawer along with some of his toys.

I think it’s OK for humans to keep a lock of a loved one’s hair, but it shouldn’t be on display or turned into artwork.

@Kardamom The difference is that hair can be readily taken from a living person as well.

This was created from living hair. But if it were from a loved one who has died, would it make you sick to your stomach?

It would me. Sorry, @Nimis – I agree that it’s no different from carrying around a body part from a deceased person.

@glacial What if they were still alive?
Not trying to convince anyone. Trying to figure out what exactly makes people squirm about it.

Actually… I have a good 8 inch cutting of my sister in law’s hair that I’m saving for when inspiration strikes me.

Waste not, want not.

I’ve seen a few different things made of human hair that I thought were interesting. Earrings, for instance, using braided hair instead of wire to string the beads together.

Doesn’t bother me but I am a lover of (most) things Victorian.

@Nimis I have serious misgivings about “carrying the dead around with us”. I don’t think it’s healthy for the living to do that.

Not trying to convince you or anyone else, just expressing the opinion you asked for.

@glacial What if they were still alive though? Is it the hair part? Or the being dead hair part?

@Nimis I think I’ve been pretty clear that it’s the being a part of a dead person part. But I’ve known people who have kept their own hair, for example, and it’s not pleasant stuff for long, once separated from a living body. Unless it’s kept clean and dust-free, it’s physically pretty gross.

So, keep your art clean, folks.

Kind of creepy cool but I don’t have anything like that. Why not.

@Nimis I would be OK with taking the hair from a living or deceased person, but turning it into “art” really makes me un-comfortable. It can serve as a memorial, but not as sculpture. I wouldn’t want to see it out, it a frame. Best kept in a keepsake box.

I’ve actually seen quite a bit of ‘hair work’ and my opinion of it is twofold.

#1.) I think it was kind of cool that Victorians made a remembrance of their loved ones that could be worn or displayed. Sort of keeping them at hand in an unobtrusive way.

#2.) THE CRAP IS FREAKING CREEPY WHEN YOU’RE NOT OTHERWISE INVOLVED.

Sooooo gross! It totally creeps me out.

What about a piece of jewelry with your deceased loved ones hair in it?

Interesting reactions.

What about…your loved one is a kooky artist and gives you a brooch with their hair embedded in resin. Really beautiful craftmanship. And not readily recognizable as human hair. They’re alive. The hair is fully encased, so not unhygienic. Is that still disturbing?

Then they die. Does how you feel about the piece change once they are no longer alive? Or does it remain the same?

For me, it would depend upon how aesthetically pleasing the work of art were.

I don’t find it inherently creepy.

The brooch pictured in that link from upthread was really lovely.

But then I’m the type of person who found it fascinating that there are people and companies who offer to freeze dry your deceased pet, posed in a way that was natural and typical for them based upon photos you provide to them.

I saw a segment about it on some news show and found it intriguing.

At the time I had a calico cat with one of the most unique and gorgeously patterned coats. Everyone who saw her commented upon how beautiful it was.

Unfortunately, this is a really really really expensive thing to do. But if I were richer, I definitely would have kept that guy’s phone number handy for the next ten years or so for whenever she passed away.

But a goodly number of people found the whole idea really creepy.

Everybody’s different.

At the assisted living facility that I work in several of the residents have these.

I think they are awful. I often catch myself staring at these with a mixture of revulsion and disdain. As well as a what could they possibly be thinking???

@Nimis : I think the root of the revulsion is that Americans, and maybe even people in the Anglosphere in general have developed a general revulsion and fear of death itself. Society seems to view it as an absolute horror and try to avoid it, even being in it’s presence at all costs. In less than a century, the dying and dead are shoved in back corners of hospitals and nursing homes, we make a million euphemisms for having “passed on”, “gone to meet their maker” for it, we try to force the body to slow decomposition to make people look more lively with science, we try millions of ways to try and slow our own deaths, or try to live longer of infinitely—-Thus we made death, and working with death a serious taboo. We are fine thinking of death, and our loved ones passing in the abstract, but to have a tangle physical connection with death, or it’s reality is an uncomfortable reminder of our own mortality, like we are inviting death itself to our door.

So i think having someone’s hair in a piece like that while they are still living wouldn’t be so bad to many people, because it doesn’t have the “stench of death” that it would if it were harvested post-mortem.

So, for those who want a human hair brooch, because it’s not related to death… would you be interested in figurines made of fingernail and toenail clippings, or a model made of human skin, or a teddy bear made of bellybutton lint?

All of these were made from the waste products of living people. Not different from hair, right?

That’s a house made of skin?

…cool.

Fair warning – I’m morbid.

I used to have an incense burner that I made out of a pair of cat skulls my stepfather found in our crawlspace.

@Seek_Kolinahr It’s funny – I quite enjoy handling the skulls of other animals; and obviously, as a meat eater, I have no qualms about manipulating their flesh and bones.

And I can understand that creating a work of art from human waste carries meaning that becomes part of the artwork – I just don’t want to wear that on my sweater, sorry. :)

Totally understandable.

As a Civil War re-enactor, I became used to saving up my own hair. For balls and such, we would make our own hair pieces – called “rats”, for obvious reasons – to create the poufy formal hairstyles of the time period. It’s not like those girls could run out to Sally’s Beauty Supply for a synthetic extension, y’know?

And, it wasn’t even that long ago that people were sleeping on hair-stuffed mattresses. And of course there are wigs made of donated or sold hair for those with alopecia and the like.

@sinscriven Yes, I think it’s the reminder of death that makes people uneasy.

@glacial Probably not. One, I think all of those things are already kind of unsanitary before they’re harvested. And two, none of the results are all that compelling regardless of the material used.