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Community Corner

'Mullet Show' at Pequot Library Explores a Timeless Classic

Photo Exhibition by Kristin Rasich Fox, the Fairfield Arts Council's New Executive Director, Features 19 People Modeling a Hair Style With a History. It's Business in the Front and a Party in the Back

Kristin Rasich Fox, a Westport photographer and the Fairfield Arts Council's new executive director, has found the mullet to be provocative subject matter. So much so, that the hair style is the focus of her upcoming exhibit, "The Mullet Show: A Reinvention of a Modern Classic," which opens at Pequot Library in Fairfield's Southport neighborhood on Saturday.

The mullet is defined as "a hairstyle that is short at the front and sides, and long in the back." According to online sources, in Scandinavian countries, the hair style is known as "hockey hair" or "hockey player haircut" because it was common among their ice hockey players in the 1980s.

"The mullet could have easily started in pre-historic times with the caveman cutting their hair so they could see, but leaving it long in the back to avoid sunburn on their necks," ventures Fox. "It's a unisex hair style that has never gone away. Paul McCartney and David Bowie had mullets. So did Billy Ray Cyrus, Florence Henderson, Joan Jett and George Clooney."

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She adds, "The mullet really helped to bridge the gap between the 1970s and 1980s, shortening the distance between the long-haired hippies and the Wall Street executives."

The versatility of the mullet - combined with its re-occurring popularity, as well as the cut's wafting between  long and short hair - fascinated Fox so much that she created her own mullet wig, which is featured in every photograph in this exhibit.

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With the help of a wig shop owner, a professional stylist and good, old-fashioned needle and thread, Fox manufactured a hair piece that is worn by 19 individuals - some of whom are prominent Westporters - who sport the hair-do in a variety of settings.

For instance, 94-year-old Westport artist Howard Munce is captured wearing the mullet while behind the wheel of a classic car. Graphic artist/photographer Miggs Burroughs is topped with the mullet hair piece while aboard a skiff on the Saugatuck River. Printmaker Ann Chernow models the wig while framed by her paintbrushes and artwork, and Paul Davis, a dedicated runner,  is captured in the wig while jogging at Longshore Club Park in Westport.

Others pictured wearing the wig include Sophia Gevas, author Judith Marks-White, Darwin Shen, Terri C. Smith, Martin West, and the fiberglass cow statue at Sunny Daes ice cream shop in Westport. The wig itself - topping a Buddha sculpture - also has a featured spot in the exhibit.

"I appreciate the courage and friendship of all those involved in this exhibit," says Fox, who notes that some people declined to be photographed as part of this series. "The mullet scares some people," she says.

However, she adds, the concept of her exhibit also has been warmly embraced. "People had fun with this," she said. "My goal with this exhibit is to make people laugh and inspire joy."

The show opens Saturday with a reception from 4 to 6 p.m. at the Perkins Gallery in the Pequot Library (www.pequotlibrary.com), which is located at 720 Pequot Ave. in Southport. "The Mullet Show" remains on view through Oct. 8.

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