BEARD
MARCH 2007
Around this time I let my facial hair grow. During this beard phase my appearance changed drastically (I looked like a different person), which led me to realize that I had preconceptions about people with facial hair. Whatever these notions are, I am not sure, they are due to something 'insignificant'. Facial hair makes up such a small portion of overall appearance; changing clothes has a bigger aesthetic impact. This makes sense though since the main interface with others is the face and barring huge changes in other aspects of the body (big change in clothing, an extra limb, wings...) the face has a greater impression upon others than any other area of the body and even slight changes can cause wide perception shifts from others. This struck me to the extent that I was compelled to do a piece.
BEARD plays with the way different visual cues of someone's personality (clothes, body language, props, environment...) can have an affect on a bystander and how the personalities created interact with the beard. The beard changed my personality, so I wanted to change the personality around the beard.
NOTE >>> The last polaroid is a shaven faced me for historical and contrasting purposes. The prop in my hand is an overly large shaver that can hardly be made out in the original.
The BEARD logo in the first polaroid is made from my facial hair. What I find truly enjoyable are the disgusted gut reactions of some people when they first look at this. Since the simple use of facial hair as medium can create such a vehement reaction, I would like to utilize that in another piece.
The beard changed me, so I revolted and changed around the beard.
