DURING MY LAST HAIRCUT, Robert provided the answers to two questions that had always puzzled me: Why do so many of us talk so quickly and openly to the person who cuts our hair, and why would someone tattoo their body from head to toe? It was nice to both learn so much and wind up looking a lot better than when I arrived.
What brought you to Santa Fe?
My husband and I moved here from Chicago in ’96. We came out one winter and it was snowing and sunny at the same time, which seemed a sign. We loaded a truck and got here six months later. We are Midwesterners, though that seems a lifetime ago. We got married on our 35th anniversary, when itbecame legal in Santa Fe County, which was a few months before it was nationally legal. This is our 42nd year together.
It’s incredible that it was ever illegal.
And it’s still illegal to buttfuck in some states.
I wonder how they enforce that [both laugh]…a topic for our second interview. But you felt it was a sign—and I recognize how Santa Fean that sounds—and just packed up your stuff and moved?
Orin wanted to come here much sooner, six years before I did. I just wasn’t ready to leave the city yet, but I always suffered from light deprivation in the Midwest in the winter, would get depressed and all that. So, when we came out and saw that it was sunny in the winter, it just seemed silly…it was time. We wanted to do it before we were too old physically to do it.
Is that moment of recognition still with you?
I can’t imagine any other place, apart from New York City, but that’s a whole other impossibility, really. There’s nowhere else I’d rather live. It just feels like home. This is not the most beautiful place in the world, and every place has its problems, but it’s so comfortable, and we’ve always sort of made the conscious decision to be kind of different,to live where you can be yourself, can be authentic. For us that means, for example, being able to wear dresses, or pajamas, or whatever we want to wear out in public, and not feel that you’re going to be a victim of a hate crime. We do still get called “fag” though, even in Santa Fe.
I’m just curious who would say that. I mean, a person thinking that is bad enough, but weirdly, it takes a certain courage to say it, because it’s so completely…
But they don’t have any courage. If you call them out on it, they are pussies, they run away. We’ve called people out on it, but it reaches a point where—reached the point decades ago, actually—it doesn’t have any power over us, because it’s true. [Laughs] I’m not even quite sure what “fag” truly means. But we were conscious of difference decades and decades ago. We were always that way, even as children. Both of us kind of had the same story. I knew I was different. I didn’t know I was gay…didn’t know what that meant until I was older, obviously, and became interested in sex.
Do people speak to those who cut their hair differently? You probably hear unbelievable revelations.
Not as many as I’d like. [Laughs] As a hairdresser of forty-something years, I kind of take it for granted, now, but it’s a very intimate, personal experience…touching people, and I’m touching people who might not be touched by anyone else through the week if they live by themselves. But also, on the other hand, I’ve come to realize that it’s a bit of a domination thing. As a client, you’re kind of being submissive. You saw it on that Seinfeld show [“The Barber,” episode 72]; people are kind of afraid of their hairdresser.
People are also looking at themselves in the mirror, which one doesn’t usually do in a shared way.
I’ve had a few people who refuse to face the mirror. They don’t like themselves. I’ve been in houses where the bathroom mirrors are covered with towels.
This setting is also an open invitation to be narcissistic.
Yeah, but I don’t tend to keep those people as clients. We don’t tend to get along. They just take a lot of energy. I can often tell if I’m not going to connect with someone, and have learned over all these years not to try. You can tell if someone is going to be really hard to please. I’ve had people say, “I’ve lived in Santa Fe for 30 years, and have never had a good haircut.” So what are you supposed to say to that? Fuck it; they are never going to be happy.
What do you find irritating about Santa Fe?
That people can’t drive. [Laughs] I’ve come to realize that there are about four reasons why people drive the way they do: they are drunk or high, or they don’t know where they’re going, or they have nothing to do, or they’re from out of town. You know, it’s just like—fucking drive the speed limit, that’s all I’m asking.
We’re also disappointed that there aren’t more eccentric looking people here. There are very interesting people with interesting histories, interesting lives, but you can’t tell that by looking at them. And, obviously, I’m a visual person.
The tattoos on your face…how did they come about?
Well, I’ve always done circles, so I found the person who I wanted to do it, and I’m not surprised that it actually turned into being full-body. It wasn’t my intention, but I’m not surprised it happened, either, because I’m not a minimalist. I soon came to realize that it was a project, it wasn’t just a whim, but an actual art project. I look at it sometimes as if I’m wallpapering this body.
What age did you do it, and how did your husband feel about it?
I started at 57, and I’m basically done. And, no, we never talked about it.
I thought, “What’s worse: to ask his opinion and not follow it, or don’t ask?” So I just decided not to. For about seven years I designed something to do that month, and maybe twice asked his opinion. I think he’s definitely growing to like it, and I love it. I held off for so long, too, because I found myself thinking, “Will I ever feel naked again?” You know, because you like to be naked. And, happily, I do feel naked.
Does it put a layer of distance between you and the world outside?
It’s made me feel younger…because it heightens my creativity in a different way. It’s also made me a little less shy in public, and I attract people more into my space with questions…people approach me when they never would have before. I had no idea that was going to happen. I did this for myself, strictly for myself, and never anticipated people commenting on it. I don’t know why. I think people realize when they see it now that there was real intention behind it. I’ve been approached by some—older people, especially—who’ve said, “I never like tattoos, but I like yours.”
Sometimes I’ll start off one way, keep developing, and then realize that, as with any art piece, it’s done. Sometimes their ideas come to me in dreams…I will wake up in the middle of the night with an image and then sort of feel like I have to embrace doing it.
Most people don’t think of their body as a canvas.
Well, I think that’s just wrong. You decorate it with a haircut, you decorate it with clothes, you decorate it with makeup. As you get older—I’m 64 now—I realize that my body is only here for a limited time. This isn’t going to be something I’m going to live with for 50 years. If I had started this in my 20s, it might’ve been different, but when you start at almost 60….
Do people typically think of tattoos as art?
Different people regard them differently, and get them for different reasons. I don’t know why I got tattoos. I just started. Some people collect artists, go from city to city and get a tattoo wherever they are, collect them as art. That’s not my thing. I go to the same person. I’ve developed an intimate relationship with her. I trust her, and we are very similar. I’ll go in with a design, and she doesn’t always know what we’re doing. I like that, even with my husband…like the idea of surprising. After 40-something years, there aren’t too many surprises. [Laughs]
And people do lots of radical things to their bodies.
Facelifts! Plastic surgery is really radical. I mean, back in the day when I was younger, in the ’80s, bleaching my hair white was radical. Or wearing pajamas. I can wear a dress, I can wear anything in public, but the times when we wore pajamas to work, or to a grocery store, that got the most attention of anything I’ve ever done. People just freak out that you have pajamas on. And I don’t even wear pajamas to bed, but it’s a great matching outfit. I don’t get it. I don’t get why people care what other people do.
Another thing is that I’ve never been afraid of commitment. I’ve been in a committed relationship, we don’t move around a lot, and I’ve done hairdressing my whole adult life. Sometimes when people say, “I don’t have a tattoo. I’d like a tattoo, but can’t decide,” you can kind of tell when people are afraid to commit, to anything.
It’s pretty committed…having a full-body tattoo.
It’s interesting, because my tattoo person, Crow, gets crazy sometimes because my designs are all based on circles, and I’ll go in wanting a circle on an irregular surface, for example. But once you get a certain age, it blows out, because your skin gets thin and the ink spreads. This drives her crazy, but the reality is, as we get older, you learn to accept stuff. You learn to accept things that you might consider imperfect, and sometimes imperfect can be perfect.
Photo Andy Johnson
