Manicures celebrate our fingertips as spaces for artistic expression. Nail art can be elevated to high art while dismantling, democratizing, and transforming the idea of a gallery. For art to be seen it has to be accessible and reach beyond the physical boundaries of studios and galleries. Our fingertips are where our understanding of ourselves ends and our experience of the world begins. These miniature canvases act as a bridge, bringing art out into the world. These seemingly insignificant adornments also reconcile two types of labor that I confront as a female artist: The invisible labor of creating artworks that may never be seen by the public, and the emotional labor of acquiescing to patriarchal beauty standards. Our nails can act as ornamentation, defense, femininity, and strength.
Nails.
In 2011, I temporarily opened a free nail salon in an abandoned insane asylum in Athens, Ohio. At the time, I struggled with feeling isolated, having moved to Appalachia from Brooklyn, NY. I was missing the culture of New York, where expressing yourself through your clothing and body is the norm. Athens Ohio is a homogenous small town, approximately 85% white. The women of color who are responsible for the existence of nail culture are noticeably absent, and so too their culture.
Nail art is art. As an artist, I feel art must be accessible. Opening a temporary salon was one way that I could create a connection between the people of Athens, art, and the cultures and communities that I was missing.
Although the project started as a tongue-in-cheek performance piece that I designed to fill a hole in my own life, it quickly became apparent that many of my peers desired to bond through this small act. As I sat forehead to forehead, hand in hand, painting each person’s nails, for a short, intimate moment we exchanged quiet, safe, feminine caring, and they left my studio salon with 10 tiny works of art.
The Salon
Athens, 2011
Nail art has always been a part of my life. I grew up on Tinkerbell peel-off polish, and as a teen in the 90’s, hoarded Sally Hansen’s rainbow-filled bottles. Growing up under strict parents, my access to makeup was limited, but nail polish was always allowed. Rarely has a week gone by where I haven’t coordinated my fingertips to my outfits, moods, holidays, seasons, or current events. I went to a nail salon for the first time in college (on Myrtle Ave in Bklyn) and for the first time felt what it was like to bond over the simple act of applying paint to your nails. To support and be supported by other women, to encourage and be encouraged by other women. The nail designs come and go with a swipe of acetone, but the real art of a nail salon is that shared experience of feminine care.
A decade later, social media has helped nail culture explode, and with that new designs, new technologies, and the tumultuous industry of self-care. More so now than ever before, in this post-Roe society, we are examining the role that these small actions have on our lives. Like everything in life, painting your nails is not politically neutral. It’s rooted in classism, sexism, and racism. But more and more we are using it as a way to subvert these systems, calling into question identities and gender roles through self-expression at our fingertips, and challenging the patriarchy with femininity that is for and by women.
This ongoing project is deeply meaningful to me, and as of 2022, I remain an enduring provider of nail art to the people in my life who wish to share this bond with me.
SELECTED Nail Designs
