Altered Wigheads by Cathy Karklyn Smiler

I have made a number of pieces in my Altered Wigheads series. Some are below.

	This is Estella, who started the whole thing off. I was asked to create a piece for a Dia de los Muertos themed show. This is a Mexican holiday which is about remembering friends and family who have died. Skulls and bones figure prominently in Dia de los Muertos art and for my take on this I used a styrofoam wighead as a base. I liked the result and it's been downhill ever since. Estella can also be seen in the image at the top of this website.
	This is my original sketch design for Estella. Sometimes I plan my wigheads in advance, other times I start with an idea and see where it takes me.
	Each spring, the flowers bloom when Persephone returns to earth. Each fall, when she returns to Hades, things die on earth. In similar balance, Persephone Wighead offsets her deathly face with blooming flowers and blue ocean waves.
	I call this one Greyscale. She features mechanical gears, chains, building materials, and shiny objects. There is another picture of Greyscale on this site's homepage.
	This is Greyscale II. He has many keys, of many kinds. Related (obviously) to Greyscale, above.
	The show for which I did Sybil wanted me to create a different piece of art every day for a month, then show them all together. I cut a wighead into segments, did each segment as a separate piece, and reassembled it. This was especially challenging as it is difficult to complete such a complex work in just one month.