Barber's Bowl c. 1680

This is a Barber's Bowl crafted in the late 17th century by William Allen. These bowls, with their distinctive semi-circular cutout, weren't merely utilitarian; they were symbolic objects. Consider the bowl's circular form. Throughout history, the circle represents the cycle of life, wholeness, and continuity. But here, the missing segment disrupts this completeness. This cut-out mirrors the act of shaving itself: a cutting away, a transformation of the self. We see echoes of this tension between wholeness and fragmentation in other contexts. Think of mandalas, where the perfect circle contains a complex, often fragmented, interior world. Or the ouroboros, the snake eating its tail, symbolizing both cyclical renewal and self-destruction. The Barber's Bowl captures a fleeting moment of change, holding within it the latent emotional charge of transformation. It's a silent witness to our ongoing process of reshaping ourselves.