The "Hat Ladies" of New Pilgrim Baptist Church

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), May, 2004 by Robert Hobbs

In these photographs, there is a poetic rhyming with the genre of passport photography that Moos' one-time hero, German photographer Thomas Ruff, initiated. References to passport photography imply that the sitter has been granted full rights to the great American dream. This includes an attendant license to participate fully in the unbridled consumerism for which this country has become renowned and the hat ladies now are becoming known.

Yet, if Moos' portraits take their cue from the frontality and apparent neutrality of the passport image, her work undermines that authority through the assertion of pairing. For Moos, individuality only is obtained through interaction. In the case of these images, it is twofold, since there is an implicit connection between the two sisters as well as with Moos herself.

An important subtext is the pan-African invocation of crowns suggested by their hats. Although none of the examples in Moos' series conjures up images of turban and head wraps, such inspirations do appear at New Pilgrim during Black History Month when church members celebrate their roots through dressing in dashikis and head wraps that bespeak a symbolic homecoming. Their ongoing celebration of an elaborate and even wonderfully excessive array of designs no doubt has been justified in terms of its ability to connect present-day wearers with imagined prototypes.

It is a dream that designers, manufacturers, and retailers have capitalized upon. Although none of New Pilgrim's senior sisters in Moos' photographs is wearing a dashiki or felt chapeau that directly copies regal tribal crowns, there are a number of imaginative hybrids that indirectly allude to an imposing African lineage, such as Mrs. McKinstry's dark headdress with ostrich feathers as well as her white one with flowers; Mrs. Merritt's flanged turban with a bronze bow; Mrs. Rose's tilted crown; Mrs. Taylor's crenelated structure reminiscent of Dogon architecture; and Mrs. Arnold's comely turban. In addition, the leopard patterns found in Mrs. Lowe's and Mrs. Brown's hats, scarf, and collar as well as the zebra prints in Mrs. Carr's suit and Mrs. Dudley's hat are telling signs of their family's atavistic place of origin.

Moos has entered into a full collaboration with the hat ladies. She has created straightforward and unblinking views of an upwardly mobile African-American middle class indulging itself in the obvious material benefits of the American dream, while finding ways to symbolize through dress their African roots and aspirations for a more fully integrated world through their hats. Although the photographs undoubtedly are Moos' creations, the hat ladies self-presentation through their dress constitutes their own estimable aesthetic contribution to these works. The two have come together to create a remarkable series of collaborative pieces that reaffirm life as a creative and highly meaningful theatrical performance that we all tacitly agree to orchestrate and then ratify as reality.

The exhibition "Julie Moos: Hat Ladies" is on view at the Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, Fla., through July 25.