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la Von Rydingsvard, she works with wood. She is bound by the limitation of Cedar but she is able to transform it into these really great sculptures. My gosh! I have yet to see them in person. My current body of work deals with black women’s hair. I grew up having a sort of love/hate relationship with my hair. I liked it as it was but it was only when I straightened it that it seemed to be beautiful to others. So I grew up thinking I had to alter my hair in order for it to be beautiful. When I got older, I realized that I didn’t like how so many methods involved in altering my hair such as straightening it, getting braids, cornrows, etc. were a struggle or were painful. I began to question why my hair the way it was naturally couldn’t be considered beautiful? I particularly became interested in how some black women have to deal with this idea of “good hair” and have this love/hate relationship with their hair when they are very young. And so many of the materials I have used are ones popular in youth such as barrettes and ampro pro style hair gel. In some of the work I want there to be this juxtaposition of hair care products and accessories used in one’s youth and forms and shapes that represent the possibility of harm, danger, or protection, etc. I believe this happens with the staffs and spears I made as well as the large spider web installation I made.