Catalog Entry from If These Walls Could Talk Exhibit, Neill-Cochran House 2020:

Bonnet hairdryers were all the rage in the 1960’s. The sensation of hot air blowing around your head—in a contained space—was… well, rather heady. It was like wearing a dome on your head, an airy crown. It is an apt metaphor for the bubble-headed, oblivious privileged woman. During the Vietnam War years, my sister and I were teenagers paying little attention to world affairs. I asked my sister just what were we doing back then? She quipped, “we were doing our hair.” In the dome of the Cathedral in Parma, Italy, is a fresco by Correggio of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. Not being Catholic, I wondered what this meant. Apparently Jesus took Mary into heaven when she died, with all the glory and honor due the mother of God.A cathedral dome is the appropriate place for such a scene. After sitting under that roaring bonnet, with hot ears, one’s hair curlers would be dispensed of, and the scalp felt like it too was soaring. With a good hairbrush, big hair would surely materialize. Hence, I thought of Dolly Parton. Lest it be totally foolish, there was also a Magritte painting called Golden Legend—the source for the Assumption—but he painted loaves of bread, French baguettes, in a blue sky. I added that to the inside of the bonnet as a reminder of the Eucharist.