straight without using any 
other chemicals. You’re almost 
a preferred, VIP Black person, 
and 
that’s 
unfortunate,” 

Hopkins said.

The 
same 
is 
true 
in 

many 
other 
cultures 
and 

communities, but all art will 
have its critics. In the same way 
artists learn to love what spills 
from their hearts onto the 
canvas, women of color learn to 
embrace their “preferred” hair 
type.

Liznel 

Ferreira, 
a 

former stylist, 
also 
had 
to 

come to terms 
with her hair.

“Now I love it 

because I know 
I can wear it so 
many different 
ways … it was 
a 
process 
in 

figuring 
out 

how to manage 
my 
hair,” 

Ferreira said.

This 

movement 
from 
relaxed 

to natural hair 
is not just a 
reflection 
of 

self-identity, 
but it’s a fight 
against history 
and the social 
norm 
when 

the 
society 

is telling you 
that your curls, 
your 
personal 

identity 
and 

art form, are 
wrong.

“Growing up, 

my hair was always compared 
to my sisters’ hair because 
their curls were softer. I grew 
up putting relaxer in my hair,” 
Ferreira explained.

When I was younger, I 

straightened my hair often 

because I saw that as beautiful. 
Toward the end of high school, 
I finally stopped fighting my 
hair and tapped into the cosmic 
energy both Zinis and Hopkins 
felt in their hair by nurturing 
my natural curl pattern. It was 
the most freeing decision I 
have ever made, and it is a bold 
statement I make as a woman 
of color.

“Natural hair is huge: it’s big, 

it’s unruly, it’s uncontrollable 
… you are literally saying, ‘This 
is what freedom looks like.’ 
And that is something that 
is scary to people, especially 
pertaining to WOC. We are 
the bottom of the totem pole 
when it comes to privilege and 
status,” Hopkins explained.

Like art, hair is a political 

and 
personal 
statement, 

especially for women of color 
like myself and Hopkins. Hair 
sends a message out into the 
world that we are here and 
we are going to take up space 
and display the art that grows 
naturally out of our scalps 
unforgivingly.

“I’m going to take up space. 

A lot of it. I’m going to take up 
all of your space, and you are 
going to have to deal with it,” 
Hopkins exclaimed.

Just as one would go to a 

museum and not touch the 
artwork, the same rules apply 
for hair. What grows out of our 
scalps is our own work — one 
that Michelangelo cannot even 
truly recreate. No matter what 
type of hair, or lack of hair, you 
are making a statement. It is a 
masterpiece in itself. We have 
to uplift and encourage each 
other by educating ourselves 
about the nature of the artwork 
and the history surrounding 
it to truly appreciate and 

understand 
it. 

This starts with 
education.

“When I was 

23, I decided to 
go to cosmetology 
school,” 
Ferreira 

said. 
“When 
I 

was there, I did 
not learn how to 
deal with hair of 
my texture. … We 
always worked on 
fine hair.”

If we knew more 

about 
hair 
and 

could 
appreciate 

the uniqueness of 
it, then maybe we 
would not be so 
scared to let loose 
and let our natural 
self-expression.

Our 
hair, 
or 

lack 
thereof, 

shapes 
who 
we 

are. It tells the 
world who we are. 
Hair offends and 
confuses. It brings 
people 
together 

and 
alienates. 

Hair 
frustrates 

us, 
finds 
us 

community 
and 

validates 
our 

identities. Hair makes us feel 
new and vibrant, giving us new 
energy and empowerment that 
we never knew we had inside of 
us. It is a powerful connector 
and divider, and we decide 
where the trajectory goes.

2B —Thursday, September 27, 2018
b-side
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Dissecting the art of hair in AA & beyond

Nothing compares to that 

feeling you get when you walk 
out of the salon with a fresh 
haircut, that feeling of newness 
and transformation when you 
leave the hair salon. For those 
few moments, you strut out 
of the salon and feel like you 
can 
conquer 
anything 
that 

comes your way, feel like you’re 
validated and you want people 
to notice you. If we take a 
moment to consider this, it’s so 
strange to think these strands 
of keratin and dead skin cells 
can make us feel so on top of 
the world. This strangeness 
is common for clients and the 
hair stylists who create this art 
growing out of our heads.

Nicholaus Zinis, owner and 

stylist of Nola’s Underground 
Salon, is a bald man with a 
passion for hair. Walking down 
the dingy, narrow staircase 
into a basement to get to 
Nola’s 
Underground 
Salon, 

I was bombarded by colors 
and designs that released a 
sort of cosmic energy into 
the atmosphere. As I walked 
through the fuzzy wallpapered 
space, my eyes were inundated 
with 
velvet 
and 
random 

antiques hanging all over the 
wall. Zinis, a colorful man in 
fantastic flowy pants, promptly 
greeted me.

When we think of artists, we 

seldom think of hairstylists. We 
think of the struggling artist, 
someone who has a paranormal 
connection 
with 
a 
canvas. 

For Zinis, his canvas is hair. 
He uses universal energy and 
this seemingly otherworldly 
inspiration to do his work and 
create art.

“If you look at the hair, read 

it and touch it, it will tell you 
what it wants to do,” Zinis 
said. “I can’t even claim credit 
for the haircut, it just flows. 
You tap into the universal love 
that flows through your arms. 
Every haircut I do takes three 
seconds; my day goes by in 
minutes.”

Zinis is a doctor in hair 

practice, 
scientist 
of 
color 

and artist of style all in one. 
He mixes colors and creates 
masterpieces, each one unique 
in its own way. He is aware 
every single person who walks 
through the doors of his salon 
is different — both in hair and 
personality.

“Sane people don’t do hair 

… you have to deal with a lot of 
personalities and pure, crazy 
chaos,” Zinis said.

For Zinis, it is not just about 

shaping art, but the personal 
connections he makes as a 
stylist. He quit his corporate job 
to become a hairstylist, and has 
since been surprisingly fulfilled 
with the human connections he 
has made with his clients. That 
wonderful connection we feel 
with our stylists is genetically 
predisposed.

“How 
do 
animals 
bond? 

Through 
grooming,” 
Zinis 

explained. “When you groom 
each other, you sit in the chair 
and it’s just diarrhea of the 
mouth.”

“I had a group of students, 

and they left in April and none 
of them got their hair cut in the 
summertime because they were 
like, ‘It’s not the same, I can’t 
get my hair cut now.’ They came 
back in the fall with a summer’s 
worth growth of hair, and they 
were like, ‘I wanted to wait to 
get my haircut with you.’”

You establish a close bond 

with your stylist by working 
together to express yourself 
through hair. Stylists humble 
themselves 
by 

washing 
your 

hair, placing you 
in a vulnerable 
state. 
The 

trust 
that 
you 

immediately 
give to another 
person to shape 
this 
new 
part 

of you, to help 
create 
your 

identity 
and 

show it to the 
world 
is 
such 

an 
intimate 

experience.

“We’ve 
had 

people who are 
suicidal 
who 

come and get a 
haircut,” 
Zinis 

explained. 
He 

shared a story of 
a client who had 
decided not to 
commit 
suicide 

after getting a 
haircut because 
Zinis 
had 

listened to him 
and showed care 
for him when he 
came 
into 
his 

studio.

“So 
is 
it 
a 

haircut? No, it’s so much more 
than that.”

Hair is art, beautiful and 

expressive, but we often miss 
telling another side of the story. 
Just as visual and performance 
art shapes culture, so does hair. 

A side of the story that has been 
brushed under the rug for too 
long is the story of hair as an 
art form for women of color. It 
is through the experiences of 
women of color that expression 
through hair has been an 
essential part of identity for 
a long time, and it is time we 
notice.

Growing up, I was known 

as the girl with the long hair. I 
remember one of my elementary 

school 
teachers 

taking 
out 
a 

ruler to measure 
the length of my 
hair in front of 
the entire class, 
commenting 
on 
its 
length 

and 
fullness. 
I 

grew up around 
the 
smell 
of 

burnt 
hair 
in 

the 
Dominican 

hair 
salons 
in 

Washington 
Heights, 
New 

York; the sound 
of 
mighty 

Dominican 
stylists chatting 
loudly in Spanish 
about the latest 
gossip 
of 
the 

neighborhood; 
the 
sounds 
of 

praise over my 
“good” 
hair. 

The heat of the 
blow dryer is a 
distinct feeling I 
will never forget. 
My 
hair 
was 

being shaped by 
these 
women, 

and at the same 
time they were 

shaping me and who I was.

As I grew older, I started 

to get my hair cut in upscale 
salons 
in 
SoHo. 
There, 
I 

became 
accustomed 
to 
the 

smell 
of 
bleached 
hair. 
I 

familiarized myself with the 

side-eyed glances of straight-
haired blonde women toward 
my dark and curly hair. I grew 
used to being pampered, being 
offered 
complimentary 
tea 

and paying at least $125 for a 
haircut. My hair evolved into 
bragging rights for me — how 
much I spent on my haircut 
and products, the length of 
my hair, and the beautiful and 
perfect curl texture that took 
form. My curls were a sign of 
my privilege, the privilege of 
fitting more into the white 
normative than other people of 
color, especially women.

Khalya 
Hopkins, 
an 

employee for the New York 
City Department of Education 
and one of the fiercest women 
to which I have ever spoken, 
wears her own “crown of glory” 
with pride, as her art comes to 
form in a very different manner. 
She found art in her hair with 
bantu knots and hair wraps, 
both ways of wearing your 
hair when “transitioning,” a 
term that describes the process 
women of color, usually women 
with kinky hair, undergo when 
shifting from putting chemicals 
in their hair to wearing it 
natural.

“People 
don’t 
understand 

that when you do transitions, 
that’s almost like a spiritual 
journey,” Hopkins said. “You 
have to talk yourself through 
that.”

“I’ve been sitting around 

ingesting 
white 
normative 

beauty for so long, that it’s 
not just cutting your hair. 
It’s cutting off a piece of your 
identity. I’ve identified with 
being part of the status quo 
of beauty, right? Longer hair, 
straighter hair. And I had to 
make a decision that I was no 
longer going to perpetuate that 
standard.”

Hair is a status symbol.
“That’s a badge of honor — 

when you can keep your hair 

ISABELLE HASSLUND

Daily Arts Writer

SARAH KUNKEL / DAILY

Hair is art and 

it is beautiful and 

expressive, but 

we often miss 

telling another 

side of the story. 

Just as visual and 

performance art 

shapes culture, so 

does hair 

Our hair, or lack 

thereof, shapes 

who we are. It 

tells the world 

who we are. Hair 

offends and it 

confuses. It brings 

people together 

and alienates. 

SARAH KUNKEL / DAILY

BSIDE LEAD

