"My art is an expression of my experiences in life. It becomes an opened diary to the world." ~Unicia R. Buster
In the future, I would like to create a book on this series. If you would be interested in purchasing a book, I would love to hear back from you. (Please do not use any of the images below without written permission from me.) Thank you.
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“Afro Mane” by Unicia R. Buster
Quilted
wall hanging $375.00
The mane of a lion defines this majestic creature, giving it character and style. When a man or a woman wears their hair in an
afro style, they are making a statement that puts emphasis on their personality, among other things.
(I cut hundreds of little rectangle pieces and glued them to the quilt top for fabric glue. Then I stitched over the rectangles with straight lines to secure in place. The faces are done with fabric and stitching.)
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“Bamboo Locs” by Unicia R. Buster
Quilted
wall hanging $375.00
Besides the cylindrical similarities of bamboo with
locs, I chose the plant for its strength in structure. Much like locked,
intertwined hair, the bamboo’s vascular make-up and growth pattern enables it
to stay firm and unyielding to the elements.
(Each loc and bamboo was made by wrapping yarn - about 10 pieces of yarn each - with a folded lengthwise piece of fabric. The ends were hot glued and then the piece was hot glued to the quilt top. I stitched along the edges to secure in place. His face was done with fabric and stitching. Some fabric paint was added to the bamboo and chest.)
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“Bold and Beautiful” by Unicia R. Buster
Quilted
wall hanging $375.00
In approbation of anyone facing a long term illness
with strength and courage, the strong and intelligent elephant is a symbol of
this strength. The beautiful mammal stands firm without a mane and gives
empowerment to those who lose their hair due to treatments for their illness.
Awareness ribbons are worn to educate others about particular ailments. I chose
to represent cancer because of friends I’ve lost to the disease. The cancer
awareness ribbons represented here are: White (lung cancer), yellow (bone,
bladder or anal cancer), blue (colon cancer), light blue (prostate cancer),
purple (pancreatic cancer), lavender (all cancers), periwinkle (esophageal or
stomach cancer), pink/blue (male breast cancer), orange (leukemia or kidney
cancer), grey (brain cancer), black (melanoma), pink (breast cancer), green
(kidney cancer or renal cell carcinoma), teal (gynecological cancer), violet
(Hodgkin’s lymphoma) and gold (osteosarcoma or childhood cancer). There are
others.
(I made my own binding strips in different colors and then cut them down to size. Then I overlapped the ends and stitched them to the quilt top. I also made a strand of beads and then stitched it onto her neck and directly stitched on the beads for her earrings. Her face was painted using fabric paint.)
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“Woolly Afro” by Unicia R. Buster
Quilted
wall hanging (SOLD)
Our hair strand is just as unique as the hue of our
skin, the shapes of our noses and the pattern of our fingerprints. Even each individual
strand on one person’s head grows a little differently from the next. What’s
similar is that each strand consists of cylindrical fibers of keratin growing
from the skin, whether its sheep’s skin, human skin or some other mammal’s skin.
(I cut many pieces of circles and attached them the same way I attached the rectangles in an earlier quilt. Her face is stitched on as the lamb's and sheep's.)
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| "Basket Weave II" by Unicia R. Buster Film black and white photograph Nature influences our way of life, guides us with her elements and gives us the fruits of her labor. What should we do in return? |
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| "Basket Weave I" by Unicia R. Buster Film black and white photograph |
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“Golden Locs II” by Unicia R. Buster
Film
color photograph
A play on the word, Goldilocks of “Goldilocks and the
Three Bears”, I am juxtaposing the mental image of a little white girl with
blonde curly hair with that of an actual image of a black lady with gold-dyed
locs. When I was young, being white with blonde, wavy hair and blue eyes was
the epitome of beauty and being black with nappy hair was ugly. We are slowly
moving away from that thought pattern. |
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“My
Digital color photograph
A bird carefully and skillfully builds its home from
selected objects in nature and continues with adornments. A home is that
familiar, comfortable place we go to relax. We build it, we grow it, we tinker
with it, we adorn it and, sometimes, we change it out. But we always love it. |
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“The
Film color photograph
With advertisements constantly telling us how we
should look and what we should buy to conform to society, it’s no wonder why we
get lost sometimes in the jungle in our efforts to find ourselves and our
identity.
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| "Afro Clouds" by Unicia R. Buster Quilted Wall Hanging (SOLD) (The hair and clouds were done by applique each section most of the way leaving a little opening. I stuffed polyester fill into the opening and then finished stitching the applique down to the quilt top. Her face is stitched.) |
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| "Afro Flowers" by Unicia R. Buster Quilted Wall Hanging (SOLD) (The hair and flowers were done by scrunching up fabric scraps and stitching them into place on the quilt top). |
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| "Hair Naturally: Bantu" by Unicia R. Buster Acrylic Painting $50 |
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“Freedom with Constraints” by Unicia R. Buster
Quilted
wall hanging (SOLD)
America, the land of the free, where we are free to express
our individuality without persecution from how we worship to how we wear and
adorn our hair … or are we?(Each plait was done by group together three strips of fabric and plaiting them together. The end was tied in a knot. The plait was stitched down onto the quilt top 3/4 of the way down). |
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| "Hair Naturally 2" by Unicia R. Buster Acrylic Painting |
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| "Hair Naturally 1" by Unicia R. Buster Acrylic Painting (SOLD) |
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| "Snowy Bantu" by Unicia R. Buster Quilted wall hanging $375 (The hair style, falling snow and coal on the snow man was done by glueing yarn in a spiral pattern directly to the quilt top using fabric glue. Most everything else is appliqued. The face of the woman is painted on as well as the "lights" of the buildings behind her.) |
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“Windy” by Unicia R. Buster
Quilted
wall hanging $275.00
The wind can be unpredictable, strong and forceful,
welcoming or calm and light. So, it is with our hair.(I drew swirls on the backs of the fabric and cut them out. I glued them onto the fabric using fabric glue and stitched down the middle of the swirl to secure. I also did some swirly stitches over all of them in like colors. The face and neck is done using fabric paint and 3D paint.) The first image is the quilt with completed border. The second is before I put on the black border. Starting to think I should have chosen another color or a wider two-color border. |
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| "Longevity" by Unicia R. Buster Film Color Photograph |
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| "Melissa" by Unicia R. Buster Film Color Photograph |
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| "Hair Naturally: Afro" by Unicia R. Buster Acrylic Painting (NFS) |
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| "Hair Naturally: Locs" by Unicia R. Buster Acrylic Painting |
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"Subtle Details” by Unicia R. Buster
Film
black and white photograph
With just the right touch, a hairstyle can look
effortless.
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| "Textured Locs" by Unicia R. Buster Film Color Photograph |
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| "Thunder" by Unicia R. Buster Film black and white photograph |
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| "So What's Wrong With Beans?" by Unicia R. Buster Film color photograph Often when I was young, my grandmother and mother used to refer to the back of my head as "beans." And when my hair would be "fried" using a hot comb and plenty of grease, the saying used to be "we need to pop dem beans!" The "beans" were just tightly coiled hair. Upon close inspection, they were like miniature ringlets. In this photograph, I positioned Daniel's head of beautifully coiled hair over a surface of beans. It just so happened to work out perfectly that she wore a wool sweater, as our hair has often been associated to the likeness of wool. More and more women in this 21st century are wearing their hair natural becoming more bold with their styles. Which is something we did centuries ago but forgot in our efforts to conform and fit it. |
Sincerely, Unicia R. Buster
Copyright 2014
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