I’m always fascinated by Black men who choose to wear relaxed hair. In the African American community, straightened hair is gendered in the same way skirts and high heels are gendered, and Black men who wear relaxed hair (or straight hair weaves, for that matter) are often doing so as part of an expression of their embrace of femininity and the body rituals associated with feminine gender performance. In other contexts, though, straightened hair on Black men serves as a mark of hypermasculine sartorial excess. Think Snoop Dogg in Shirley Temple curls in the 1999 music video for Dr. Dre’s “The Next Episode.”
Whether deployed in the service of femininity or masculinity, though, Black men’s adoption of straightened hair almost always exemplifies the classic Afro disaporic aesthetics of excess, and that in and of itself is worth capturing in this series of portraits.
The Hive: The Place to Bee, MacArthur Blvd. near Fruitvale Ave., Oakland, California.
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In the midst of posting my drawings from a day at The Hive cafe on MacArthur, I had to do a lot of travel in a relatively short time, and I had to do some of that travel away from my laptop. It’s good to be back, though, and I have lots of new drawings to share.
The man in this drawing was sitting diagonal to me at the picnic style table where Eddie and I were camped out at the Hive. The man in this drawing was having an animated conversation with the woman seated beside me, and I liked that he kept glancing my way to see my progress on his portrait. When he got up and walked around me, on his way to the door, he paused to look over my shoulder; and when I looked up at him, he smiled. But he left before I had a chance to offer to send him the finished drawing.
I saw this man through the window during my art afternoon at the Hive. He was one of several Black men who either walked past the cafe or stopped in. I enjoy drawing figures who have some sort of variation on the traditional beard or goatee, so this highly symmetrical guy with the slightly unkempt chin beard was a perfect subject. I also really like drawing knit caps. The texture is a fun challenge, especially if you like to do line work. I included this guy’s beard and sideburn (and haircut) stubble to add to the texture in the portrait.
My job has become a bit hectic in recent weeks, and so I’ve had to sneak in my art whenever I’ve had a spare moment. I’ve had to make the most of each of spare hour or two, and so my afternoon at the Hive resulted in several new drawings for this series. This dapper business man with the impeccably trimmed beard sat across from us long enough for me to complete this portrait.
