All Her Glory

All Her Glory

All Her Glory is a hand stitched, cloth calendar that documents my medical hair loss over an entire year, from 6 October 2019 to 5 October 2020.

Each day is represented by a 7cm square of Aida with an embroidered border, date, coloured codes that correspond to my diary entries during the same period and, where relevant, a hair ball. These were then sewn on to canvas panels which were, in turn, blanket stitched into a candlewick bedspread. Also included, is an embroidered poem (self composed) and a key, to describe the coloured codes.

The project began, not as an art work, but as a response to renewed hair loss due to a particular cancer drug. Worried I’d end up bald, as I had before, I decided to carry out an experiment to determine if this hair loss was going to get worse, stabilise or improve. As well as saving my shed hair every morning and rolling it into tight balls - that I then stuck to dated cards, I was using numerous hair products that promised to reverse this loss, add volume and/or effect regrowth. However, the products were applied chaotically and without any form of scientific control, so the experiment was pointless and the daily collection of hairballs simply became an obsessive and ritualistic behaviour - which was later echoed in the process of making the work.

The hairballs had been languishing in a drawer for over a year, until I started work on the ‘calendar’ in early 2022. It took over six months to complete.

Photography by Jack G Phillips