It was recently put forth, in this task, that an obtuse and varied category (for instance 'female body') could be considered not only "A" work of art, but "The Greatest" work of art. That expanded idea of "work of art" emboldened me to do this task. "HUMAN HAIR!" I instantly thought, "If i could buy or create replicas of human hair for this task, then i definitely want to do it!"

I remember as a child declaring that i wanted to make "a wig". My father said, "well, yes, make a wig", and so i sat for hours cutting little strips of paper and taping them together to fashion a wig. I grew very frustrated however; i wanted it to look real.

Yes, I have always been obsessed with human hair and it's imitators since long before i started hanging out with drag queens. And I'm not the only one; people have been primping and presenting and getting all worked up over human hair for millenia. Yes, if anything (or, indeed, any category) could be the greatest work of art, i would say "human hair".

So after surveying my own collection of replicated human hair, i set out to purchase and or make replicas of the human hair.

Unfortunately, shortly after some arduous but successful wig shopping, the task replicating "The female form" got flagged. Imagine that! What a tragedy for all SF0 players! Now players could not win the task by simply downloading a few still life paintings off the web ("but the greatest work of art in the history of humanity is the pear!!"). More importantly, my praxis would not be so easy after all. I would have to come up with a real actual work of art which i could reasonably argue to be the greatest ever and come up with a reproduction of that actual work of art. Fortunately, because i'm a girl in touch with her own sense of the superlative, I quickly came up with plan B.

Elsa Shiaparelli was a fashion designer, but, with her quirky affronts to the conventions of her time (1930's) and her collaborations with the surrealists, she is truly one of my favorite artists in history. Additionally, the only thing that commands as much fascination as hair would be shoes. My mother could always pick out my drawings as a child because they were the ones in which everyone was wearing crazy shoes (i kid you not, ask my mom).


AHA! The Shoe Hat designed by Schiaparelli in 1938 as a collaboration with the surrealists. Frankly, i think Elsa Sciaparelli's hat was brilliant and was part of the most brilliant art movement in history (surrealism), therefore i feel secure in my own opinion that Elsa Schiaparelli's shoe hat is, in fact, the greatest work of art in human history.

Additionally, i had just acquired this great new wig, so the idea that i could at least wear the wig with my new purchased or created fake was especially appealing. I got to work, and after several weeks of mildly obsessive searching and crafting, ended up with a respectable replica of Elsa Schiaparelli's famous Shoe Hat.



Check out the captions on the pictures below to read about the whole process involved with this praxis. It was quite a process.






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