Hats off to the Birthday Crown Society: Elaborate headwear honors celebrants’ lives and speaks to who they are
When Kathleen McMurray turned 40, she knew she would not tolerate a celebration featuring black balloons and birthday cups with “Over the Hill” printed on it.
Instead, she asked a friend to make her a silver crown similar to one used in a feminist ritual that the resident of Orange, now 63, had read about.
The aluminum headpiece — close enough to silver, McMurray joked — which was embellished with beads and confetti shaped like the number 40, became the start of a nearly 25-year-old tradition whereby friends craft crowns, hats or helmets for loved ones on their decade birthdays.
The highly decorated headgear made by the loosely organized Birthday Crown Society has gone from being adored at birthday parties and dinners to now being admired as works of art. Several pieces now form the “Crowning Glory” exhibit, open until April 8 in Orange Coast College’s Doyle Arts Pavilion in Costa Mesa.
It’s the first time the society members have had their work publicly displayed.
Uneasy with the public perception that reaching middle age should be dreaded, McMurray looked at receiving her first crown as a “rite of passage into maturity.”
“I liked the idea of being a wise woman rather than over the hill … rather than seeing it as the first stages of diminishment,” McMurray said.
The aluminum crown in the exhibit is joined by others adorned with light bulbs, photos, flowers, buttons or small toys. All are meant to convey something about the wearer.
Santa Ana resident Jon Gothold, who was born during a leap year, has three hats — the most recent one, with small alien figures glued atop a white space helmet, mirroring his fascination with science fiction. His friends named it the “Space Oddity.”
“Being born on a leap year is kind of awesome,” said Gothold, 61, about his Feb. 29 birthday, which rolls around only once every four years. “Everyone remembers when your birthday is, and when you really do have a birthday people make even more of a fuss.”
Pavilion curator Kim Garrison Means, who also has a hat, sees this exhibit as unique.
“Usually, art is made to be consumed in a gallery and purchased, but this is art that’s made to be a ritual or rite of passage,” she said. “In a way, the hats are a protest to society’s ideas of aging, which kind of belittles you as a person instead of celebrating the rich human being you are.”
That meaning can be profoundly felt too.
When La Miranda resident Mike Orem, 60, lost his 50th birthday hat in a garage fire over a year ago, his friends presented him with a new one — actually several hats stacked together.
The “Rocket Man” is part construction helmet, beer hat, sombrero and other headpieces, all representing the many “hats” that Orem figuratively wears in his everyday life. Then there’s the homemade rocket.
“I built model rockets with my kids when they were growing up, which is why the rocket is there,” Orem said. “I also make a good margarita, which is why the sombrero is there. There’s a hard hat because I work in construction [as a contractor] and so on.”
To be inducted into the Birthday Crown Society — with one’s own coronation ceremony — is simple.
First, friends and family of the birthday boy or girl form a committee to construct the hat in secret.
The hat is then presented to the recipient at a birthday party, where society members parade around in their own hats. The most recent recipient of a crown performs the coronation for the newest person.
A second parade follows with the latest member of the society leading the charge.
The society, which has around 35 members, has seen hats given to birthday boys and girls from ages 10 — McMurray’s nephew — to 90.
With the opening of the exhibit at Orange Coast College, society members hope the tradition and its universal message will carry on to a bigger audience.
“There are those milestone birthdays that people want to sweep under the rug, but we make a big whoop-dee-doo about it because we’re defying age and death,” Gothold said. “It’s also a wonderful tribute to friendship.”
Over the years, whenever hatless spectators have marveled at their headgear at birthday outings, society members would happily reply with their beloved motto: “Ask your friends to make you one.”
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IF YOU GO
What: “Crowning Glory” exhibit
Where: Frank M. Doyle Arts Pavilion at Orange Coast College, 2701 Fairvew Road, Costa Mesa. Pavilion is by parking lot D on Merrimac Way.
When: 11 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Thursdays until April 8.
Cost: Free
Information: orangecoastcollege.edu/artspavilion
Twitter: @AlexandraChan10
