Ever since my days in hair school I’ve heard hair stylists refer to themselves as artists. Meaning, that to be a hairstylist they were automatically taking a career in the arts. Let me just say this, I can appreciate where these declarations are coming from, but hairdressing in and of itself is not an art.

That’s not to say that hairstyling is completely artless, as much of what we do can fall into that classification of applied arts. There are many hairstylists who are artists as well, in fact there are a good deal of shared skillsets between the two factions. However, that doesn’t make all hairtylists artists.

Hairdressing is a skill, not an art. It’s a skill that borrows certain properties of the arts, however, the same can be said for landscaping. Are all landscapers artists? No, definitely not. Neither are all hairdressers.

I think that most of the hairdressers I’ve known who make this claim are looking to add some sort of pizaazz to how others view them. Hairdressers like to think they are rockstars much of the time. They dress like rockstars and can carry themselves as rockstars. There’s a reason for this, but it isn’t that we are actual rockstars!

I don’t mean to disparage hairdressers, I just mean to suggest that you might want to be more discerning as to what you proclaim as art. I’m of course not saying this as a hairstylist, I’m saying it as an artist.

You probably can’t tell from the dark photo, but this is my bike’s new lighting at night. I opted to just put some directional LEDs underneath rather that flood the bottom for that “halo” effect.

I got up early this morning to get some gardening in before work… are 13 words I don’t often use together

The concept of “free food” intrigued me enough to start a vegetable garden. Two windowboxes filled with herbs, six containers on the back deck, and this, my first attempt at a raised bed using scrap lumber. I have next to no experience in (sub)urban farming, so this should be an education.

These raised beds are about 5 feet by 6 feet each, and will be dug out a little deeper before I pour in some growing soil (because I can’t imagine the existing soil is good for anything besides lead poisoning). I could use the exersize anyway – it’s been a long, well-fed winter.

Springtime in Vermont is… we’ll it’s kind of stupid.

I did a relatively decent job painting and finishing the face panel and the dashboard speaker panels (oh, did I mention there were speakers coming?), but when it came to painting this Warriorz tailwing I ran into blemish after blemish. When I tried to fix them this is what happened. I’ll ride this summer as-is and afterward take it off the bike, sand it all down and start over. Lesson learned.

Gas door in place. Shiny. Just in time to catch all this brilliant Vermont spring cloudshine.

(That was sarcasm, by the way)

I’ve been modifying my Yamaha Grand Majesty for the last couple years. Today’s newest piece: an LED crystal-style chrome taillight. You can also see my BSC Daytona chrome gas door in the background. More to come!

My latest incarnation of hair (I seem to change it every three months). It’s a kind of icy blue, used Pravana Vivids: Silver for a color, diffused it with a spray bottle and combed it through.

The “Batmobile” (not my nickname choice) is out on the streets again. The latest customization is the seats. One thing all the best Tokyo Lowriders have in common is a fantastic custom seat. However, getting one made up can cost over a thousand dollars. My own upholstery skills are OK but not good enough for this project. So I instead used the stock seat and painted it with SEM vinyl upholstery paint. I’ll detail the process in a future post, but for the now I am pleased with the color and the shine. Re-upholstery will have to wait.