This drawing by a local high school student was procured for the Famous Hairdos of Popular Music by my pal Tom, an art teacher and longtime friend of this project. Big, big thanks to the drawer and thanks as always to Tom.

This postcard was in the Famous Hairdos P.O. Box this morning. Thanks to the drawer for sending it in. I love these drawings where all the constituent parts are nameable, like, ok, that's a river, some hills, Morrissey's hair, a tongue, shining sun, maybe those are nostrils, stegosaurus spikes. Yeah, that's everything. But still, what am I looking at? Is this a prehistoric ancestor of Morrissey's hair, pausing to drink from a cool mountain spring? There has always been a Rorschach element built into this project, but it's interesting when a completed drawing comes back and the hair has been turned into yet another inkblot, and I wonder just who is in the psychiatrist's chair, so to speak.

This is fun. Let's keep doing it!

A little roughed-up by the postal service, but nonetheless a nice postcard drawing retrieved from the Famous Hairdos P.O. Box this afternoon. Thanks to the drawer for sending this in! Here Jimmy Page has a neck to make Parmigianino proud.

Famous Hairdos Postcard Installation

Last week (while showing off all the great drawings from the Madison Zine Fest) I promised exciting news, and here it is: For the next two weeks (October 11- 22, 2010) blank postcards for the Famous Hairdos of Popular Music project will be hanging in UW-Milwaukee's Mitchell Hall for passersby to take and fill out! For anyone new to the project, this short paragraph should catch you up and give all the necessary details:

The Famous Hairdos of Popular Music is a two and a half year old collaborative art project based in Milwaukee. Friends and strangers complete drawings inspired by images of famous musicians' iconic hairstyles. Between October 11 and 22, you can participate in the project. Check out the space in UWM's Mitchell Hall between rooms 349 and 353 on the third floor, take a postcard, complete a drawing, and mail it back to the address printed on the reverse. This project becomes more fun the more people participate. Please join in!

I have to thank Lisa Moline, who arranged this for me, and Marcelino Stuhmer, whose students' work usually hangs in this location, for allowing me to use his space. As I write this, my fingernails are still sore from sticking all those pushpins. As an added incentive, the first hundred postcards come pre-stamped, so you can give your drawings to the project without spending the twenty-eight cents to mail them in. I will be dropping by often to replenish the postcards as they are taken. So please take them.

In other news, some may recall that a small contest was held here a few weeks ago to celebrate the publication of the fifth volume of The Famous Hairdos of Popular Music. I doubt that anyone is waiting with bated breath for the results of this contest because, well, no one entered. But if there are any armchair quarterbacks who have been checking for updates, that's your answer. No winner, but also, I suppose, no losers (or infinity losers, pessimists), but I'm not too disappointed. It was fun to try, and a similar contest will likely be mounted when the sixth volume comes out.

Thanks as always to any drawers, past and future, who keep this project going.