Her hair salon doubles as a haven for art lovers

HAIR AND NOW: Luz Arteaga Pray, owner of Hairspray Salon on Wickenden Street in Providence, has transformed the salon into a full-service spa with an art-gallery component. / PBN FILE PHOTO/RUPERT WHITELEY
HAIR AND NOW: Luz Arteaga Pray, owner of Hairspray Salon on Wickenden Street in Providence, has transformed the salon into a full-service spa with an art-gallery component. / PBN FILE PHOTO/RUPERT WHITELEY

In 2005, Luz Arteaga Pray took over the Hairspray Salon on Wickenden Street where she had worked for a decade, buying both the business and the building it was located in.
It was a huge step for the native of Medellin, Colombia, who grew up in Cumberland. When asked if she was prepared for the added burdens she was taking on, her frank answer was: “God, no!”
However, she added, “I haven’t regretted a day.”
She has transformed what was a typical Providence hair salon into a full-service unisex spa and, almost as an afterthought, combined the hairdressing business with what might seem an incongruous partner: an art gallery featuring the work of local artists. “I wish I could say that this is exactly how I saw it all and how I planned it,” Pray told Providence Business News. “But the truth is, these things just happened.”
She came to this country as a child when her father relocated the now-defunct factory he helped manage from South America to the Blackstone Valley. He chose to settle his family in suburban Cumberland, where back in the 1970s, few Latinos resided. “The English language is very difficult to learn,” she said.
After graduating from Cumberland High School and attending hairdressing school, Pray began work as a hair stylist. She got married, had four children and moved with her young family to a farm in Rehoboth, where they still reside.
Then the economy started to plummet.
You can see the plunge reflected on Wickenden Street, whose identity is shifting, Pray said. Upscale art galleries and antique stores have given way to ethnic eateries and trendy trinket shops geared to college students. Pray made certain that her salon offers just about any service a client, male or female, would wish for. But still, all the services in the world could not guarantee a steady stream of customers.
“I started hosting artist events,” she said. “I did it for us [her and her stylists] to meet people and to build a clientele. Artists always want a new venue. Maybe, for whatever reason, they don’t get into the official galleries, but they’re always looking for ways to have their art seen. I figured, I have walls, there are a lot of local artists that need a place for their art, so why not have it here?”
Every three months or so, she organizes an art exhibit, held at the hair salon and typically featuring the work of 25 artists. She contracts with the artists, whose only obligation is to bring at least six people into the salon for the opening-night exhibits.
Pray said she has had as many as 100 people attend her exhibits.
In between shows, the art remains on display. People held captive in salon chairs, waiting as their hair dries or their color sets, can contemplate the art more than they could standing in a gallery, Pray noted.
Most startling to Pray is that – without marketing or promotional efforts of any kind – the artwork sells.
“Selling the art was not a goal or even an expectation on my part,” she said. When a piece is sold, she keeps a percentage of the price as her commission, with the rest going to the artist. “I am booked to the summer of 2012,” she said late last year. “I don’t even look for artists anymore.” &#8226

No posts to display