30 New Hair Designs By Kansas-Based Hairstylist, Ursula Goff

We contacted Ursula to find out more about her current creative work. First, we asked why she decided to transition away from her unique hair designs and pursue different projects instead. Goff shared with us: “I’ve done art all my life, but never seriously considered 'artist' as a job title till a perfect storm of events brought on by Covid. My health had been steadily and mysteriously declining starting when I was about 26 (I’m currently 41). I had developed asthma and skin conditions, in addition to neurological, gastrointestinal, and reproductive symptoms, all of which seemed to increase in severity and frequency every year. Most of it seemed to have no cause; most diagnostics found little or no problems 'on paper'. I also began having problems with the discs in my spine about 10 years ago, one of which is basically gone now and causes moderate to severe discomfort depending on my activities and movement. Once Covid came along, I decided to be cautious at first and take a few weeks off from work doing hair till I knew more about what was happening, since my health problems put me in a high-risk category. Then, the state of Kansas, where I live, required non-essential businesses, like salons, to close temporarily. It was the most time I’d ever had off of work, and nearly every single symptom I had suddenly cleared up. And it has largely stayed that way ever since. So it seems that some of the chemical exposure - most likely from hair lightening products like bleach - from specializing in hair color was causing me a lot of physical harm, the source of which was really difficult to pin down until I wasn’t being exposed to it anymore.”

“So, I decided to never really work with any brands ever again and did a hard pivot in mid-2020 into art. I’d been dipping my toe back into it already as a hobby for a few months at that point, and figured that since I already had a decent social media following, maybe I could actually make it work. And I kind of have; I’ve sold approximately 1,000 pieces in the last 3 years (which sounds like a lot, but my average sale price point is about $100, so divided over 3 years…it’s not as much as you’d hope, lol). I also refurbish furniture and decorative items; it’s hard for me to find things for my own house that I like and I figure I can’t be the only one, so I do a lot of rainbow and mermaid makeovers.”

The artist shared with us that she is also interested in photography: “I rent my studio out of our local newspaper office, where I’ve become pretty good friends with the editor. When she needed a full-time photographer earlier this year, she asked me if I would be interested, since I had already submitted some photos to the paper here and there from events I had happened to be at for my own reasons (mostly sports events to see my son compete). Locals are starting to ask me to take ‘their’ photos professionally, so that’s a slowly growing option for me, as well. My body feels better and I’ve really enjoyed just getting to experiment with a lot of different concepts and mediums. When I graduated high school in 2000, I never thought I could actually sell any of my art because the internet still wasn’t much of anything and there was no social media and everyone always loves to point out how artists need a real job, whatever that means. A lot of the obstacles for reaching an audience have been removed, so that’s why my attitude about doing it as a job changed. I’m really lucky I get to do it at all; I know that’s not an option for everyone and I know there’s artists out there that never sell a single piece. I basically get to have fun for a living!”

We also found out that Ursula has some personal reasons that influenced her decision about quitting the beauty industry. She told us: “There’s also a personal change I’ve noticed as I’ve gotten older - I just don’t care about beauty that much anymore. I’ve deconstructed a lot of the beauty brainwashing that women are put through, especially after having a daughter, and I had begun to ask myself the last several years if I was complicit in a system that perpetuates a lot of misery for women. Yes, I specialized in what might be considered alternative forms of beauty, which does have the potential to be empowering, but honestly, I was just getting tired of beauty being such a huge component of the existence we are expected to have as women. It takes up so much time and energy and money… and it was starting to feel wasteful to me. I was wanting to have more time to focus on other things - my family, my community, how to better contribute in whatever ways I could. I’ve since been able to volunteer more and get involved in some fairly significant public arts projects. And the newspaper photography has me out in the community more, especially at the schools and with local kids and their activities, and that’s been surprisingly gratifying and has connected me to others in a new way that I’ve really enjoyed. So even if all that other stuff hadn’t happened, I may still have worked my way out of the industry as I increasingly felt at odds with beauty standards and values.”

We noticed that Goff’s artwork exhibits a remarkable cohesion with the style she previously incorporated into her hair designs, featuring vibrant colors and distinctive textures. Ursula gave us more insights about her current artworks: “It’s cliche, but I like to play with light and color pretty often. I love glass and crystals and opals and gemstones and even when I did hair, I often worked to replicate the visual effects of those items in (hopefully) new and interesting ways. Nature is a big inspiration as well, which is often where the texture comes in - geodes and agates and canyons and geological features are often in the back of my mind when I’m thinking about color and layers and how I want the artwork to come off the panel.”

The artist continued: “Also, me and my kids are all on the autism spectrum, so we all have various sensory stimulation seeking preferences that I didn’t really learn about till my last one was a toddler. He loved to touch everything - I made so much effort to create a lot of tactile stimulation for him to help him meet that need - and once I started doing art full-time, I started really thinking about what that could mean with art. Art is often NO TOUCHING, but maybe not all of it has to be that way. So I make art that you not only want to touch, but that you're encouraged to touch. Maybe it’s really smooth and chrome-like, maybe it’s a little bit jagged or rocky feeling, maybe it’s heat reactive to your body temperature. I play around with the dimensional aspects of my pieces just as much as the color and visual aspects. I think about what a piece will feel like as much as I think about what it will look like.”

“I also love sparkles and metallics and iridescence, so I’ve experimented with a lot of different materials to get different light and color-changing effects. Holographic vinyls, color-shifting multichrome pigments, rhinestones, iridescent cellophanes, a variety of acrylic mediums that dry clear and shiny, smooth or gel like or with glass beads… I want each piece to shift into something different depending on the lighting and angle, I want the client to feel like they’ve got 2 or 3 or even 4 art pieces in one. While my son always wants his tactile sense stimulated, my daughter and I always want our visual sense stimulated, so there’s no such thing as 'too much' for me. My eyes are always bored and looking for maximum color effect, so most of my work is just me trying to meet my need to make my eyeballs happy all the time.”

“I do draw a lot of ideas from classic art and do a bit of reproducing since I’m a good copier, like a Kandinsky completely covering a ceramic skull, or a textured metallic version of The Scream. I also like to occasionally choose unconventional subject matter for rainbows and glitter, like cheeseburgers and pumpkins and that gold decor that was popular in your grandparents’ home in the '60s. I’m currently covering a dragon skull in blue and green rhinestones, working on a multichrome food series, and doing heavily textured monochromatic reproductions. I’m never sure what I’ll do next because I usually get my new ideas from the stuff I’m already working on, and I never know how that will go.”

Now that we know the reasoning behind the changes in Ursula’s career, we wanted to find out if she occasionally undertakes any personal projects that involve hair coloring, or if that aspect is completely closed off in her career trajectory. She shared with us: “I’ve experimented with designing some custom clip-in hair extensions and wigs, just to try to tap into my original audience and some of my fun viral projects from the past, but I didn’t love it. It’s just too physically demanding, doesn’t usually feel worth what I’m charging, and at this stage, I’d just rather be doing art. I do still have thousands of dollars in real hair extensions that I used for a lot of social media work over the years, colored in fun bright tones, so I periodically cut that up to put into my artwork (or to make a rainbow hair clock, like a salon owner friend commissioned from me). I’ve even switched to lower-maintenance hair color for myself to avoid the side effects that came with the bleaching necessary for rainbow hair. Probably the only way I’d get back into it again is if I desperately needed money in such a way that I’d be willing to feel miserable daily and lose years of my life. I still share old hair content from time to time, because I did a lot of cool stuff that I’m still proud of, but there is otherwise no new beauty content coming from me for now.”

For more information about the artist and some amazing pieces of art she creates, you can visit her Instagram or website.