Michelle

“Michelle” is the second part of my series inspired by qualities. A representation of ‘Power’: “the ability to act or produce an effect.” Faces are sliced in parts to depict that we do not hold ourselves together, God does.

”Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” Proverbs 4:23

A major element of this painting is Michelle’s long flowing hair greatly inspired by a story of apparent studies conducted during the Vietnam War with Native American Indian trackers.

The story goes;
“During the War in Vietnam, the American military searched for scouts and trackers. After they had been recruited, they carefully recorded their skills and talents and rapidly found that their new Native American recruits were more than adequate for the task.
After the young Native Americans were recruited, and after going through countless rituals of joining the army, the skills, and talents that were present, and specific to them seemed to vanish.

The army started exploring for answers and returned to some of the Native American elders who responded when their young men received the mandatory haircut after joining the military, they could no longer “sense” the way they did before.
After more recruits were selected from different Native American tribes, they performed tests in order to see what was going on, and if “the length of hair” had anything to do with their capabilities.

“Here is a Typical Test:
The recruit is sleeping out in the woods. An armed ‘enemy’ approaches the sleeping man. The long-haired man is awakened out of his sleep by a strong sense of danger and gets away long before the enemy is close, long before any sounds from the approaching enemy are audible.
In another version of this test the long-haired man senses an approach and somehow intuits that the enemy will perform a physical attack. He follows his ‘sixth sense’ and stays still, pretending to be sleeping, but quickly grabs the attacker and ‘kills’ him as the attacker reaches down to strangle him.
This same man, after having passed these and other tests, then received a military haircut and consistently failed these tests and many other tests that he had previously passed.

Whether this story is true or not we do know that;
1. Native Americans did fight in the Vietnam war, yet there are no accounts of units composed of long-haired Native American soldiers.
2. The New England Journal of Medicine claims that hair both emits and receives electromagnetic signals to and from the brain.
3. Kirlian photography exists.
4. Different cultures and religions saw/see hair as a sign of strength.
Maybe the story of Samson & Delilah makes more sense taking this into consideration?