Spider

Sonya Y.S. Clark

1998

cloth and thread

These delicately crafted pieces in Sonya Clark's "Wig Series" examine ordered structure and symmetry in African American hairstyling culture. These five works are part of a larger series inspired by the Fibonacci sequence of numbers; they are parted into sections of 1, 2, 3, 5, and 8, respectively. As disembodied domes, they underscore the head's spiritual importance-across several African traditions-as the home of the soul.

Think eight legs and a spider comes to mind. Ananse the Spider, a trickster in Ghanian folktales, crossed the Atlantic in the hearts and minds of West Africans. Re-characterized as Aunt Nancy and Brer Rabbit, the fables continue to be told throughout the Afro-Atlantic world.

Credit

Purchase, through the Rudolph and Louise Langer Fund