Fingers

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.

The head, like the hand, can grasp concepts and hold wisdom. Here the scalp is divided into five sections that become thread wrapped extensions, the fingers.

Credit

Purchase, through the Rudolph and Louise Langer Fund