Amidst the chaos of pre-spring break assignments and busyness, Bryn Mawr’s Sisterhood* hosted a laid-back teach-in on nail art and black culture at the Enid Cook ‘31 Center, where students got to unleash their creativity onto a fresh set of nails.
On Monday, Feb. 24, the ECC was a calm environment with only the noise of classical music and quiet conversations. Once all the nail equipment (extensions, paint, brushes, and bedazzling gems) was laid out on the table, a conversation began about the history of nail art and extensions which includes a dentist first accidentally creating acrylic nails, the beauty of nail art in China, and the artistic expression of Black Americans through nail culture.
While a stigma has grown around long creative nails, Black pop-culture figures continued to bring them into the mainstream via sports and art publications like Vogue.
The teach-in portion of the event was succinct, as students had to shift their focus to the work at hand— the very challenging and rewarding task of making a custom set of nails. With the ambiance of a Monster High movie in the background, everyone got to painting and discussing their visions.
The conversation shifted from one serious topic to another, such as the politics of who was the best Avatar in the series. With the participants’ already close relationship, the energy was light and energetic.
Despite their familiarity with each other, the community space was welcoming to new people. As we finished up, it was abundantly clear that the task at hand had been a good medium to talk about culture and politics, which can be stressful, and genuinely find enjoyment in the nails themselves, learning not just about the tension behind nail culture but also the reasons why people enjoy them so much. Focusing on the designs and realizing how difficult nail art is revealed why people were so passionate about them, and why people find it so easy to spill their life stories to their nail artists.
