When Oak Forest artist Anastasia Zappas-Raptis gets inspired, her work literally comes off the top of her head.
That’s because the owner of Zappas Salon in Tinley Park uses the shorn locks of her clients’ hair as well as her own to help create artwork.
Zappas-Raptis said the idea of using hair as an art medium came to her several years ago when she was looking for a place to recycle the thousands of pieces of cut hair swept up in her salon every day. She said she saw hair as a resource rather than refuse, but she couldn’t find anyone to take it.
But Zappas-Raptis said she let her creative juices flow. She began bleaching, dyeing and affixing the hair to canvas, creating art depicting everything from icons to portraits. She hung most of it in her Oak Forest home, and friends and family loved it, she said.
Recently, an art gallery took notice of her work.
Zappas-Raptis had a nearly monthlong gallery showing in March at the Sydney Berne Davis Art Center in Fort Myers, Fla.
In the Southland area, Zappas-Raptis will show her artwork 3 to 7 p.m. Sunday at her home, 14516 Club Circle Drive.
Zappas-Raptis said although her artwork is evolving, her mission to donate a portion of profits from the sale of her artwork remains the same. She said her intent is to support the Cure It Foundation, a nonprofit organization founded by Dr. Jason Canner at Advocate Hope Children’s Hospital in Oak Lawn to support children with cancer, and other causes to improve the lives of those in need.
About three years ago, longtime hair-stylist said she started creating artwork strictly using hair.
Last year, however, Zappas-Raptis studied under a Santa Fe, N.M., artist who encouraged her to add another dimension to the artwork with acrylic paint, she said.
“I have never painted a lick in my life,” Zappas-Raptis said. “It was God coming through me.”
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Zappas-Raptis also began to create single themed artwork instead of individual, unrelated pieces art as a result of her Santa Fe studies, she said. Her first collection, a 12-piece “Diva Collection,” took about a year to complete and was the centerpiece of her Florida showing. Zappas-Raptis said one of the more popular pieces of the otherwise completely female collection was a picture of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, complete with bleached blond hair.
“Everybody (in Florida) loved taking pictures with him,” Zappas-Raptis said.
Zappas-Raptis also is working on a “Trump Trophy” collection depicting Trump in 2016 presidential primary and a “Happy Hour” collection that includes beverage glasses with female faces and hair colors representing different types of alcohol.
Ginger Brashinger is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.