Like a lot of other people, I woke up today with paint on my face.
The black encircling my eyes was part of my Halloween costume, which was one of those indecipherable ones that are typically kind of obscure television references. I will tell you this and then resist the urge to elaborate: I was the Nightman from the FX comedy “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” and with my nemesis — naturally, the Dayman — I gallavanted down Franklin St. belting out the following song:
Delighting, confusing and annoying people with this extremely obnoxious ballad was fun. But so was wearing face paint.
I felt really cool and awesome and fierce wearing it, so much so that I wished I could wear it all the time. Which made me wonder why it’s not quite socially acceptable for us to paint interesting things on our faces on days of the year that aren’t Halloween.
Why would people think it strange for me to paint my face to go to class or the grocery store or a non-Halloween party? How would adorning our faces with paint be different from adorning our bodies with clothing?
We’ve been missing a serious artistic and creative outlet here, and I give all of you permission to use it. Take a lesson from Lady Gaga and treat your face as a canvas for beautiful images — or, frequently in her case, disturbing and physically nauseating ones.
The face is the final frontier in fashion. It’s a medium for art, it’s what people look at (generally) when they talk to you, and it’s just waiting for us to do something with it. The least we can do is dress it up a little.
Katherine Proctor is the assistant Arts editor for The Daily Tar Heel. She enjoys mid-Western accents and bears no relation to any witch-hunting puritans from “The Crucible.” Each Tuesday, she will highlight national Arts content for Canvas.
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