In this as-told-to interview, hair artist Tanya “Nena” Melendez shares the stories behind two wigs she made for Image’s October issue.
The first wig is inspired by the celestial bodies, by the stars. I’m on this continuous journey discussing our connection to the stars and heavenly mates. Living in the inner city in L.A., there’s smog, light pollution, sound pollution; we’re towered by these skyscrapers and all these street lights — our access to seeing the stars is blanketed. I wanted to highlight how powerful our connection is to the stars.
There’s a deeper side to that story, tied into my spiritual practice, Ifá. It’s a traditional spiritual practice from the Yoruba people in Nigeria. It is said that we come from the stars. There are other Indigenous cultures that speak about this: the Hopi tribe, the Dogon tribe in West Africa, the Lakota tribes. And of course, the Yoruba people in Ifá speak about our heavenly mates. If you see the braids, they are woven to mimic the celestial bodies in the heavens.
To the unsympathetic eye, the hairstyle is peculiar, so childlike and unflattering as to be offensive. But as rasquache provocation, it’s also a work of anti-assimilationist art
There are also other subgroups when you practice Ifá that assist us. There is a specific group, predominantly women, called Korikoto. Korikoto is an Orisha, a deity that governs and protects children. With this hairpiece, I wanted to highlight what is currently happening with Palestine, with Congo, with Sudan. We are approaching a year of this genocide, and I’ve been grieving, with everyone else who’s been paying attention. I used this hairpiece as an opportunity to speak on the injustices that are happening globally and to children.
I grew up in a house full of women, and my mom was a single mom. I would always see her dye her hair and switch up her makeup. When I was little, I was like, “Why can’t she just be normal?” Like, why does she have to do all of that, right? But it wasn’t until way later I was like, “Oh, that was my mom’s way of empowering herself.” She was shape-shifting. She was shape-shifting so that she could access spaces she wouldn’t otherwise have been able to access.
Your hair, your aesthetic, your makeup — it’s armor. It is a weapon. Tying that to the history of braids, it’s widely known how braids were used as maps by enslaved people to navigate their way out to freedom. Braids held seeds and grains of rice. For our ancestors, everything was done with intention.
Here in the West, we do things just because, because we feel like it, because we want to, because we like it, and not really focusing on the why and how that affects us, how it affects our mental health, our emotional health, our spiritual health. We’re very two-dimensional here a lot of times.
With the second wig, I wanted to do a softer, more feminine piece. I was honoring the spirit of the river, of the sweet waters of Osun. In the Ifá tradition, all people are children of Osun, of the sweet waters. Without water we would not exist. We couldn’t grow food, we couldn’t build our homes, we couldn’t bathe, we couldn’t heal the sick without water. Water is life. Water is everything. I wanted to just really play on the feminine energy of that. The sweet waters are the embodiment of purity and beauty, and the essence of beauty. But there’s also another side to it, which is the embodiment of someone very fierce and strong and protected. With that hairpiece you have these braids that are stitched into florets around her crown. I did an ombre effect with the braids, from brown to gold, to try to pull in the colors of the river, the water, that honey amber, softness. And then with the hair adornment, you have the alligator, you have honey bees. There’s a sweetness with a bite.
Your hair, your aesthetic, your makeup — it’s armor. It is a weapon. Tying that to the history of braids, it’s widely known how braids were used as maps by enslaved people to navigate their way out to freedom. Braids held seeds and grains of rice. For our ancestors, everything was done with intention.
— Tanya “Nena” Melendez
All my materials are sourced locally. There’s an artist friend of mine, his name is Manny Torres. He has his own independent business called 2ndWnd. We’ve been in community for years. He’s also an entrepreneur and makes all kinds of stuff. He basically takes my illustrations and laser cuts them out on these acrylic pieces that I source. And he can do it on wood, on vinyl, on all kinds of stuff. And so I hit him up like, “I have this project. And I know it’s last minute, can you please fit this in for me?”
I have my Ìyá, my woman elder in my Ifá practice. Her name is Ìyáifa Efuntosin, and she’s a priestess, and she’s always been there to help assist and guide me. I travel to Nigeria; I stay in her room. She teaches me a lot of things — even with this first hair piece, she provided more information, more clarity on Korikoto. She was there as a guide, a source. My friend Martha Carrillo also came in last minute to help me build the sculpture piece on that first wig. And Melissa Sandoval, the makeup artist, is another really good friend of mine. I invited her to join, to highlight her work, and to also play, to have fun and just be inspired and have this conversation between each other. It’s definitely a community effort.
—As told to Allison Noelle Conner
Hairpieces Tanya “Nena” Melendez
Production Rafaela Remy Sanchez
Models Melanie Moreno, Sydney Nelson
Makeup Melissa Sandoval
Tanya “Nena” Melendez is Puerto Rican and was born and raised in northeast Los Angeles. She is a self-taught multidisciplinary artist with a background in traditional folklore dance. She is a world-renowned celebrity hairstylist.
Allison Noelle Conner’s writing has appeared in East of Borneo, Frieze, Hyperallergic, KCET Artbound and elsewhere. Her fiction has appeared in the Kenyon Review. She lives in Los Angeles, where she works as a contributing editor at Carla.
