Tag Archives: head art

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Ultra Sounds Monday, January 23, 2012

Ah, you are in for a treat today. Luma R. Brieuc, a henna artist from Montreal, has submitted some photos. Luma’s work was featured a little while ago in a posting about head art.

As Luma writes to me:

I started getting henna crowns requests several years ago through my henna business and
when I was approached by Frances Darwin,— founder of Henna Heals— about
back in 2010 to collaborate on her project, I knew we were using our creative
talents to help people in a special way, particularly women who were going through cancer
and who needed to feel beautiful regardless of the transformation their bodies were going through.

The photos HotHeads 01-02-03 were taken in Spring 2011 in Toronto, at the Henna Heals
workshop where I was training a few henna-artists on how to do henna crowns.
I myself, live in Montreal (6 hours away). The original design is by me, and the henna artwork
was done by three talented henna-artists on 3 lovely women who were going through chemo and radiotherapy.
They generously accepted to serve as our henna muses for the day.

You can find more of Luma’s work here and here

I wish I had known about Luma when I lost my own hair. Imagine walking around with a gorgeous henna crown on your head – who could feel miserable then?

Enjoy

Sam

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Head art

Losing your hair to chemo is a pretty dramatic event. There is the huge sense of loss, the struggle with identity and beauty and then there is the great decision as to what to wear, if anything to cover your bald head. Perhaps if I had a really beautifully shaped head I would have gone around bald – some women do just look so darn good bald. But I also think it shows a lot of confidence to walk around bald. This article is about an amazing woman who went one step past bald. She lives in Arizona where the oppressive heat helped her to make her decision not to wear any kind of wig or head covering. But then she got creative and, with the help of her son-in-law, an artist, sported art on her head. He would draw on some beautiful design in non-toxic Crayola markers which would last a week before she would get another. I just love the creativity and confidence of this woman. Head art opened up a new way to engage with strangers that didn’t focus on her as a victim.

 

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/cancer-survivor/MY01176

 

Of course once I twigged to this possibility, I started searching for more examples of this wonderful idea.

Apparently there are henna artists, who will create henna crowns for people who’ve lost their hair. These are elaborate and gorgeous designs that really make use of the head as a canvas. Here are a couple of interesting related links:

http://lumanessence.blogspot.com/2011/12/bald-bold-beautiful.html

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Linda-Olsen-Empowering-Breast-Cancer-Patients-Through-Henna-Art-Experience/121541994570127

 

At the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital in Michigan, they do head art with kids to help them cope with losing their hair:

http://www.med.umich.edu/mott/news/newsletter/spring04/CSM_p04.pdf

 

And then for those women who just go bald and proud, here is a review of a beautiful portrait book of bald women called Turning Heads: Portraits of Grace, Inspiration and Possiblities

http://irkedmagazine.com/3628/turning-heads-portraits-of-women-bald-from-chemotherapy/

 

Sam