hilltopics images people features friday february 23, 2001 for comments, contact kristielliott at 864-4924 or features@kansan.com
friday, february 23, 2001
6A
Marianne McGrath sees all kinds of wild hair as an instructor at the Independence College of Cosmetology but none as strange as the hair art at the Hair Museum in Independence, Mo. Leila Cohoon owns the museum. where every piece of artwork is made of human hair.
Hair Today, Here Tomorrow
The Hair Museum in Independence, Mo., preserves a forgotten art form
story by chris borniger - kansan opinion editor - photos by thad allender
taking into a room packed with thousands of strands of hair could cause you to flip your wig, to exploit a pun.
From wreaths to watch fobs, brooches to bracelets, hatins to earrings – it's all
After all, it's not every day that a person experiences such an unorthodox exhibit. But every year, more than 1,000 visitors do just that at Leila Clooan's Hair Museum in Independence, Mo., just outside of Kansas City.
Real hair of the lady depicted in the painting is pasted on top of the framed picture. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, hair collecting for the purpose of hair art was common for families trying to remember a deceased family member.
there, and it's all hair. The small, 10-by-15-foot room (adjacent to the Independence College of Cosmetology, which Cohoon also owns) is loaded wall-to-wall with more than 2,000 pieces of hair art.
"To my knowledge, it's the only hair museum in the world." Cohoon said.
The roots of Leila Cohoon's passion for hair art, however, stem from an unusual experience while shopping at Kansas City's Country Club Plaza in 1956.
Although the museum has only been open since 1990, Cohoon has been in the hair business for 51 years. A hairdresser by trade, she and her husband Don opened the cosmetology school in 1960.
She encountered a beautiful wreath at an antique store and was shocked when she found out it was made from human hair.
The history behind the wreath fascinated her. Its frame was dated 1652, and
someone had written "mama and papa"
and some sentences in German
Translated, it explained that the wreath consisted of hair from several members of an
Leila Cohoon's Hair Museum is open from 8:30 to 4:30 Tuesday through Saturdays at 815 W. 23rd St., Independence, Mo.
Call (816) 252-HAIR. Admission is $3.
Austrian family, produced as a memorial She bought the wreath, and a hair genealogist was born that day.
"I guess it's become my obsession." Cohom said.
Each piece of hair art in the museum has a unique story behind it, she said. One floral tapestry contains the hair of 156 members of an extended family. Two wreaths consist of the hair of two sisters who sheared their heads before entering a Sedalia, Mo., convent in the late 1800s. Another wreath is a memorial to a young girl who died while still an infant, also near the turn of the century; her parents kept her hair to remember a life cut short.
Creepy? A little. The practice, which dates back to the 15th century, became popular during the reign of Queen Victoria in England, who wore a bracelet of her husband's hair after his death as a sign of mourning. But Cohoon said hair art wasn't strictly to commemorate a loved one's death; it marked significant events, was given as gifts for sentimental value and, sometimes, was purely decorative.
"It's not just an art form." Cohoon said. "It basically was a forerunner of photography. Since most people didn't have cameras, keeping hair was how they remembered the people they loved.
"It's the only part of a person that's still here after they die. That's family history, and it doesn't disintegrate. You don't have to worry about preserving it."
In many ways, it's a lost art, she said. Most pieces date from before 1900, because of the decline of the Victorian Era and a popular belief that the hair of dead people was contaminated with the plague.
Cohoon, who said she had made several pieces of hair art using strands from her own family, described the process as painstaking. Strands must be tied to weights to prevent tangling. Then, they're counted and divided into piles of equal number, all the while keeping follicles at one end of the pile. Thanks to her ability, she's a keen restoration artist, saving older pieces of hair art in need of repair. Cohoon even collects pieces from around the world. She's traveled the globe, seeking new pieces of hair art (next week, she's off to Hong Kong). And since the advent of the Internet, she's used the Web to track down hair art for sale.
1 there, she's found even more examples of unusual hair art: buttons made from hair and memorial wreaths glossied with paint made from — big surprise — powdered hair.
I find it quite interesting where I find it,
when I find it," she said. "Every day, I
wonder what I'll find next."
Even comic Phyllis Diller sold a hair wreath to Cohoon. Diller found the wreath at an antique store. She sent it to Cohoon, attaching a note that reads "This hair wreath comes to you from a woman who has outlived her hair."
But Cohoon has a rule for the exhibit: No piece can be younger than 100 years old. That would probably rule out a piece from the town's other favorite Harry figure; Independence is, after all, Truman's hometown.
Cohoon is semi-retired now, but she keeps busy with her hobby. This June,
she'll play host to the fourth convention of the Victorian Hairworkers Society of America. She's expecting guests all the way from Germany, Sweden and China. Hair's use as a genealogical tool fascinates her. She's even writing a book about it.
Marianne McGrath, an instructor at Cohoon's college of cosmetology, said Cohoon's love for history and for family drove her passion for hair art.
"She's such a people person, such a family person," McGrath said. "She really takes these pieces to heart. They mean something to her. I think it's neat that she's preserving a part of the past."
Thousands of strands of hair are woven together to create a cross with miniature flowers, each made of individually selected human hair.
McGrath said she understood how some people would think the practice was strange.
"Hundreds of years from now, people will say 'What were they thinking?'" McGrath said. "But we're all gonna die someday. If we gonna have something for our families to take care of forever, it'd be hair."
Borniger is the opinion editor for the Kansan. His thick, bleached-blond spiky hair — of which he is very proud — is so sharp it can be used as a weapon. Borniger can be reached at 864-4924 or features@kansan.com
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