SEAGULL SALON NYC Beauty & Culture Blog

Small Works for Big Change 2016 - The Sylvia Rivera Law Project

This year Seagull Hair Salon was proud to sponsor the annual art auction at the Sylvia Rivera Law Project alongside Cooper Union, Bitch Media and many more. The auction, Small Works for Big Change, is always very exciting because it is for a really good cause: 

Fighting Discrimination against Gender Non-Conforming People: Focusing on People of Color and Poor People

In case you are not familiar, below is a description of what  SLRP works to do and you can find more info here: THE SYLIVA RIVERA LAW PROJECT.

 "The Sylvia Rivera Law Project (SRLP) works to guarantee that all people are free to self-determine their gender identity and expression, regardless of income or race, and without facing harassment, discrimination, or violence. SRLP is a collective organization founded on the understanding that gender self-determination is inextricably intertwined with racial, social and economic justice. Therefore, we seek to increase the political voice and visibility of low-income people and people of color who are transgender, intersex, or gender non-conforming. SRLP works to improve access to respectful and affirming social, health, and legal services for our communities. We believe that in order to create meaningful political participation and leadership, we must have access to basic means of survival and safety from violence."

Like every year, a bunch of super rad artists donated small pieces, including works from Leidy Churchman, Nancy Brooks Brody, and A.K. Burns. One of the coolest things about this particular auction is that it does not exist online, which means if you want to purchase a piece of art you actually have to be there IRL. By doing away with online bidding and limiting the geographical scope of people who can bid, this auction allows for people to bid on work by artists that otherwise would be monetarily out of reach. And that's pretty cool! I personally managed to nab a small painting by Andrea Geyer, who I wrote about earlier this year due to her huge contribution to the opening of the new Whitney Museum, "America is Hard to See". 

Andrea is a longtime Seagull VIP and I'm really stoked that I get to add her piece "Scratching the Surface From Below" to my mini art collection.

xoxox Shaun SureThing for Seagull Hair Salon, West Village, New York City

 

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Part II of Riot Grrrl Pioneer Fights to Keep Salon in Village Amid Skyrocketing Rents - Seagull In DNA.Info

This is a second part follow up to our mention in DNAInfo.com. Q&A by lead stylist of the West Village hair salon, Seagull, Shaun SureThing and Johanna Fateman. Scroll down for the original post after the Q&A of Riot Grrrl Pioneer Fights to Keep Salon Amid Skyrocketing Rents. 

 

 

DNAinfo New York sat down with Fateman and Cottle to talk about their fight to stay in the West Village despite sky-rocketing rents, how they've seen the neighborhood and the city change around them and what it means to run a feminist hair salon.

Talk about your commitment to staying in the neighborhood.

JF: It’s sort of ridiculous to talk about gentrification in this neighborhood anymore because it’s, like, the most expensive neighborhood in the city. But there’s this strange paradox where local independently owned businesses are why people want to live in the West Village, because there is McNulty’s [Tea & Coffee] and Seagull. So we’re trying to stay here and find a business model that works, that’s true to who we are but also can work in this climate. We have to constantly kind of go back to square one and be like, how can this work? How can we preserve the legacy of Seagull and its connection to gay liberation in this neighborhood and make something that can generate enough revenue to stay here? It hasn’t always been easy.

SC: I’m so proud that we are a business that has been here since 1971. Gentrification is behind us, urban blight is happening and we’ve managed to find a weird hole and dig ourselves into it, and we’ve managed to make it a really glamorous spot.

How has the neighborhood changed around you?

JF: I feel a lot of sadness to see these ground floor spaces taken up by these huge bank lobbies and by CVS. It just seems like the square footage is exorbitant and it really affects — the way we walk through this neighborhood is different. In that sense I was sad to leave the ground floor. There was something nice about having the storefront. But at least we’re still here.

SC: The other thing that’s sad that’s happening in this neighborhood is that landlords are like, "You can’t afford it, I want $25,000 a month" and then it just sits empty. It’s like, "Oh, congratulations on the huge profit you’re making."

JF: It changed too with the outrage of people who have bought into these luxury buildings, their outrage at the queer youth populations and communities that still hang out on Christopher Street and the Christopher Street piers and still have that as kind of a citywide destination for hanging out. We’ve had some arguments with people about that.

SC: I think the neighborhood is definitely less queer or the queers here are older. But because the queers haven’t died off there's some kind of weird bohemian energy hanging in the air still. I don’t know if it’s the ghost of HIV past or if it’s just like this neighborhood was so much entrenched with that spirit that no matter who moves here it still sort of feels that way.

 

 

OMG I was SUPER STOKED when I found out that my very favorite news source DNAInfo.com was interested in doing a story on the history of Seagull: how we've transformed over the decades to bend to the changing will of the West Village while retaining a core, queer feminist integrity. My very favorite journalist for DNA Danielle Tcholakian sat down with Johanna and I to dish about West Village post-gentrification, shuttered storefronts and urban blight, body images in popular culture, and how we've managed to keep a beauty salon infused with our DIY punk rock spirit. You can read the whole thing HERE: Riot Grrrl Pioneer Fights to Keep Salon in Village Amid Skyrocketing Rents. This is a short excerpt from the article:

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A grant vote for @seagullSalon is a vote for you. @shaunsurething @johannafateman

Riot Grrrl Pioneer Fights to Keep Salon in Village Amid Skyrocketing Rents - Seagull In DNA.Info

OMG I was SUPER STOKED when I found out that my very favorite news source DNAInfo.com was interested in doing a story on the history of Seagull: how we've transformed over the decades to bend to the changing will of the West Village while retaining a core, queer feminist integrity. My very favorite journalist for DNA Danielle Tcholakian sat down with Johanna and I to dish about West Village post-gentrification, shuttered storefronts and urban blight, body images in popular culture, and how we've managed to keep a beauty salon infused with our DIY punk rock spirit. You can read the whole thing HERE: Riot Grrrl Pioneer Fights to Keep Salon in Village Amid Skyrocketing Rents. This is a short excerpt from the article:

https://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20160512/west-village/riot-grrrl-pioneer-fights-keep-salon-village-amid-skyrocketing-rents

What does it mean to be a feminist salon?

JF: I think that the way in which it’s feminist for me and probably for Shaun, too, is in the sense that we come from like this punk feminist culture, DIY culture that’s very irreverent towards expertise. And we were like, "We can do it. No, we don’t know how to run a business but we can figure it out."

Our feminism is also about paying living wages to our employees and making a sustainable small business where we can employ people and allow them to be their selves and express themselves on the job and pursue their other creative projects and have flexible schedules.

SC: In terms of it actually being a feminist salon as far as beauty goes, one of the things I’ll often say to women if they’re like, "I have a really high forehead so I feel like I can’t do xyz," I’m like, "Okay, well, I don’t see that as a stylist but if that’s how you feel there’s ways to address that. But that’s not a concern of mine that’s jumping out at me."

JF: Also what’s wrong with having a big forehead or a fat face or a long skinny face?

SC: Yeah, we should exaggerate it. If you want to look really fabulous in New York, maybe we should do the thing of taking your flaw and exaggerating it. Let’s take your round face and make a bob at your cheekbones.

All of our stylists first and foremost are very, very, very specific about not imposing any specific style onto any one person. We really listen. Like, what do you want to present? Who are you? Do you want to be blond? People don’t take women with blond hair as seriously as women with brown hair. Do you want to be taken seriously? Do you want to be able to sneak your ideas through the office because you’re blond? Because we could do that. Pulling out of women who they want to be in the world and then trying to bring that to fruition. That, to me, is the most feminist thing that I do in the salon everyday.

xoxoxoxo

Shaun SureThing for Seagull Hair Salon, West Village NYC 

The Kitchen Spring Gala and After-Party (Hosted in Part by Shaun SureThing and Johanna Fateman)

The Kitchen Spring Gala After-Party is my favorite event of the year by far!

This year I'm happy to get to co-host with my bestie and business partner at Seagull Salon Johanna Fateman alongside BCALLA, Lady Bunny, Eckhaus Latta, Pati Hertling, Ryan McNamara, No Bra, Ellie Rines, Jacolby Satterwhite, Thor Shannon, SSION, Emily Sunblad, and Stewart Uoo.  

Here is the link to where you can purchase tickets to the after-party.

This year The Kitchen is honoring pioneer video artists Dara Birnbaum and Charles Atlas. 

Dara Birnbaum is best known for her iconic video Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman, which she made using pirated footage of the wildly popular 1970’s television show of the same name starring Linda Carter.

Aside from showing Wonder Woman at art venues and clubs all over, we at Seagull Salon are obsessed with the 1980 pop-up installation of Wonder Woman at the storefront windows of an old SoHo hair salon called H-Hair Salon de Coiffure, Inc. Birnbaum’s Wonder Woman replaced the only VHS tape the salon owned at the time, an Italian version of Woodstock that had been on loop until Birnbaum approached the statuesque Linda Carter look-alike salon owner and asked if she could play Wonder Woman instead---to which the salon owner happily obliged.

Dara Birnbaum: Please, can you show my tape in your window, especially on the weekends?

H-Hair: What is your tape about?

DB: Wonder Woman

HH: Oh, I love Wonder Woman. I’ve been told I look like her.

DB: (She did)

 

Charles Atlas has been a favorite of mine for a long time, but I was re-introduced to a lot of his work by Johanna, who worked on his eponymously titled retrospective artist book. My favorite work of Atlas' is the 1984 film Hail The New Puritan, a collaboration with choreographer Michael Clark and Leigh Bowery with music by The Fall. 

 

 

 

And, of course, one of the most beautiful things that ever happened at all in the world: the Time Square Arts' Midnight Moment event,  Charles Atlas & Antony "You Are My Sister (TURNING)" (December 2014)

 

 

 

The Kitchen Gala after-party is super fun! I've gone for the last nine years and am happy to be included on a list of luminaries. Good DJ's, open bars, cute snacks and gorgeous people. It's always a great time. PLUS they always have the awesome photo booth by Bosco, which is where I'll be all night snapping up the universe's best selfies. 

Tix Here

Hope to see you there! 

xoxoxo
Shaun SureThing

 

 

 

Seagull Salon Announces Endorsement of Seagull VIP and Poet Eileen Myles For President Plus Miscellaneous News Items

Seagull usually doesn't get involved with electoral politics, and has not officially endorsed a candidate since 1992 when Myles threw her hat in the ring and, before that, 1972 when we stood proudly behind the unbought and unbossed Shirley Chisholm. 

But, today, I read in the New York Times Magazine that Eileen Myles would consent be the POTUS if called upon by the American People. My heart filled with hope. Myles states, "I mean, if the voters rose up with a write-in campaign, then of course I would serve."

Here is an inflammatory highlight from her interview:

"I think it would be a great time for men, basically, to go on vacation. There isn’t enough work for everybody. Certainly in the arts, in all genres, I think that men should step away. I think men should stop writing books. I think men should stop making movies or television. Say, for 50 to 100 years."

While men should go on vacation, Myles has not had time to. This has been a busy year or so, full of literary and political accomplishments including the celebrated reissue of her canonical iconic Chelsea Girls, the publication of her poetry collection I Must Be Living Twice, and her totally postmodern cameo on Transparent in which she played witness to her fictionalized character performing her real poem. Speaking of Transparent, I am officially forecasting "Goth Moppa" as a 2016 fashion trend as well as the "Ali blouse," (any weird blouse) as a wardrobe staple. Oh, and I also recently learned that Myles is a 2016 Creative Capital awardee. Not to brag, but I got one of those grants—to write about art—last year. Plus I made it on Holland Cotter's top ten, NBD. Anyway, thank the goddess we can look forward to a collection of travel essays from Myles. Our bestie Laura Parnes got a Creative Capital grant,too, to continue production on her very exciting new "multi platform" film Tour Without End which promises to prominently feature Seagull staff and other VIPs, notably K8 Hardy. Which brings me to some crucial news about our muse: K8's Outfitumentary is eligible for the Bright Future award at... ROTTERDAM!  And on that high note, I'll sign off. HAPPY NEW YEAR! xoxo Johanna

P.S. Here's my 2015 Artforum Music Top Ten. Nice layout right? 

 

 

New Salon, New Year, New Art

Hello loves,

Welcome to 2016! The whole Seagull staff is ecstatically grateful to start the new year fresh in a new salon---a much, much bigger space to accommodate more clients/stylists than we ever imagined. We also needed space to hang more art! If you recall, Dead Seagull (our old location's unofficial name) could only hold one painting at a time, which was pretty limiting since there was so much more we wanted to hang. 

We knew when we opened the new Seagull that we needed a very bold piece to greet our clients right when they walked in the door.  What better choice than one of Kathe Burkhart's (in)famous Liz Taylor paintings: 

Shaun took this photo of me at the front desk on our first day open for business, and as you can see, I'm ecstatic and honored to work along side a Burkhart piece:

Burkhart's work is intimidating and alluring. While this piece reads "Fuck You" if you read between the lines, it's saying "Get on my level."

Another score is this print by Alice O'Malley photograph that hangs out near our lovely new product shelf:

It's very Seagull meets Friday the 13th VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan. I love it so much. 

We also got this A.L. Steiner print that is the perfect summation of the Seagull aesthetic: very queer and New York with a knowing wink to the West Coast.

Seagull thrives off the art and the energy of downtown NYC, so these newest additions to our collection make us incredibly happy. Definitely looking forward to future acquisitions from our favorite NYC artists.

We hope you have had a chance to come see new Seagull, and, if not, please come see us soon!

xo
craig hunter

@NaomirWolf on Blonde Hair and Feminism: I Dyed My Hair Blonde and It Completely Changed My Life @Cosmopolitan

I mean first off. FAG OUT. We get to say that Naomi Wolf, journalist, political advisor and author of The Beauty Myth (basically the feminist beauty bible) gets her hair done at Seagull. Our salon! Right here in this town. Wolf is largely credited as the spokeswoman for the third wave feminism on which Seagull Salon's foundations were built. 

 

"Then I found a feminist hair salon. Seagull, in Manhattan, was recommended to me by a Millennial friend with one of those cool haircuts that suggest that you know how to code (she does). She explained that Seagull is co-owned by a Riot Grrrl … one of the iconic 1990s early Third Wave groups of pissed-off young women who embraced a revamped, livelier version of feminism just when the culture had said the movement was over and done."

Now hitting the news stands Naomi Wolf's amazing Cosmopolitan magazine article about Seagull, Sara, a changed life and the culture of blonde hair: What it was, was it isn't and what it can and cannot be. I personally talk endlessly about the nuances of going blonde in the salon. Your life WILL change. And no one could have articulated it better than Wolf who is inarguably the best writer on beauty and feminism. 

"The next time I went to Sarah, I asked to go lighter still. Change can be a little addictive, and before I knew it, I had become kind of … blonde. And I began to notice how the rigid code of what blonde and other hair colors used to signify had loosened. It was no longer overdetermined."

Seagull's Sarah Fenoglio is Naomi's stylist and gets RAVE reviews in the article and together, her and Naomi dispel the myths of blonde hair and rebuild a new culture of radical beauty choices that are no longer necessarily based on the basic principle that "Blondes Have More Fun" even though, in some cases maybe they do It's for sure worth reading the article. 

xoShaunSureThing 

Shaun SureThing For @NylonMag How To Find The Hair Stylist of Your Dreams.

Here is an article I wrote for NYLON.COM on how to find your dream hair stylist. It's a step by step process and hopefully will be of some use to some ladies.

xoxoShaun SureThing for Seagull Salon

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Marilyn Minter: Pretty/Dirty

Despite being on view at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (CAMH), Marilyn Minter: Pretty/Dirty is definitely Seagull Salon blog material: Minter is art royalty and an inspiration to the salon. And I was lucky enough to be down in Houston to revel in Minter's three decade exploration in painting, photography, and video. 

Minter's early painting studies and student photographs of her Southern recluse mother lounging and primping open Pretty/Dirty...

...before showing Minter fully embrace the glamorous vs. the grotesque themes central to her work. 

Minter's work is messy yet slick. She's making jokes but asking questions, too. 

Why might these images be seen as disturbing to some? The details one might find to be jarring in her work are actually not if you think about it, as the "grotesque" aspects are usually nothing more than a pimple or messy nail polish application or overgrown pubic hair. The imperfections allowed to exist in these glossy photographs are actually interferences with the mainstream idealized concepts of beauty seen in glossy magazines. What is typically edited out of a photo then becomes vital to Minter's work. 

And it's when Minter fully commits to her pretty/dirty aesthetic that the work really comes to life. The colors become more vibrant and glossy, too, which is no surprise: she is letting her creativity run wild with her subject matter. Saying the CAHM show is beautiful would be an understatement. The works hang huge on the wall and are fun to look at because Minter is having fun with her work.

Marilyn Minter: Pretty/Dirty is a fantastic glimpse of a visionary at work. Go see it at the CAMH or Colorado or California---or Brooklyn when it comes to NYC next year!

 

xo
craig hunter

Consummate DIY Colorist @arabellesicardi Speaks for Fashionista *ing Shaun SureThing

Over here at Seagull Salon we all marvel the masterful Arabelle Sicardi at her supreme ability to totally do her own hair. Bleaching and coloring yer hair at home without looking like a shredded cotton ball is no easy feat. But a quick Google image search will show you that she can go from muted forest green to lemon or pastel coral without so much as one hair snapping. 

So in her 

RAINBOW HAIR DYE: A COMPLETE GUIDE

we were super stoked to have mentioned Shaun SureThing as an expert source, since, OBVIE she is the expert source on her own but W/E we were happy to get the shout out!

And like she says (and so do we. We love Pravana at Seagull)  "There's more on the shelf than Manic Panic, people."

In the hair guide, Arabelle goes over all the ins and outs of different over the counter, and some salon only, colors to get all the best effects at home from pastel to vibrant reds and greens. 

Check her peice out... And keep coming to Seagull even tho now you know how to do it at home. 

xoSeagull.