It’s been just a few months since we welcomed Josh Hamilton Rufer (aka @inMyBeard) to our bearded family... but the site he created was dedicated to a full year worth of stuff in his beard has closed up shop... Whether by suggestion or by personal initiative, the hairy creations Josh injected into the web -- in some cases odd and in others melancholic, it was always entertaining -- is nothing short of amazing... the good news is he will keep the beard, or is a goatee?
Regardless, to commiserate over the news of the deadline’s passing, and to celebrate the 365 days of pure beard goodness, Build-a-Beard flew down to Alabama right after our exclusive meeting with Rocky and Balls in the UK, to sit down with Josh to take a look back... For the record, Josh's chin mane achievements are just about the only reason we'd go to Alabama... seriously.
B-A-B: What prompted you to embark on such an expansive (and dedicated) bearded adventure?
JHR: Near the end of 2008 I found myself in a creative rut. I wanted to find something that would force me to be on my toes inventive without consuming every moment of free time I had.
I was inspired by ZeFrank's year long project The Show, but didn't feel that I had something to say that was worth listening to. I decided that I should leverage what I did have. A camera a beard and a whole bunch of junk.
B-A-B: You do know that technically your beard isn’t a beard… it’s a Goatee… a fine one, but a Goatee nonetheless. Would you ever grow a full on beard? Why, why not?
JHR: Not to be contrary but I believe my "beard" is in fact a beard. Merriam-Webster defines a beard as "the hair that grows on a man's face often excluding the mustache." By That definition, What I have is a beard. One could even argue that my "beard" is not technically a goatee by the most strict definition, as a goatee is described to be "a small pointed or tufted beard on a man's chin." Though the term "small" is subjective, I assert that my beard would not generally be described as such.
I have wondered what I would look like with a full beard. In fact, I have even let my cheeks grow out a bit from time to time. Unfortunately, when I do so, the cheek hair appears sparse and splotchy. I am unsure if this due to an uneven distribution of hair follicles across the entirety of my face or simply an optical illusion caused by the new growth's proximity to my already substantial chin hair. Either way, I would have to shave the chin to give the full beard a chance. I'm just not sure I'm willing to do that yet.
B-A-B: Hm, seems like we’ve hit a nerve… we say, give it a whirl and #proveit when you’re ready, goat boy. Regardless, we’ve never seen your face… why the incognito approach?
JHR: When I first came up with the idea for this project, I took several test images to see what would look best. I noticed that most of the full head shots I took looked like pictures of me making funny faces. The fact that something was in my beard was easy to over look and if the object was small it could disappear all together. I knew that if my full face was in the images, the result would be a bunch of pictures of me... not a bunch of pictures of my beard.
For the record. I do have a face.
B-A-B: And a fine face it is Josh, not to switch topics of anything, but… How many of the items were suggestions? Or did you come up with most of them yourself?
JHR: Most of the objects in my beard were of my choosing. Some days I selected an item that fit my mood or a theme. Other days, the item was the first think I found on my desk or. That said, I did get both fantastic and disruptive suggestions from friends and followers.
My new found Twitter and DailyBooth friends were very helpful.
@NutellaCoffee requested a romantic comedy DVD to counter balance a recent action video game. What she got instead was a copy of the video game Lips. @ReelVixen suggested a garden gnome. @Mary808 was awesome enough to snail mail me two vinyl figures for use in my beard!
My real life friends were far more likely to make suggestions that involved fire and the general destruction of beard material. After giving them the "I'm not lighting my face on fire" look, they were also very helpful.
B-A-B: What was the heaviest thing that was ‘In your beard’? How about the silliest?
JHR: The heaviest thing by far was the octopus soap dispenser. Though not that large, it is made of thick porcelain and full of liquid soap. I had to screw it's lid onto a small portion of my soul patch. I had to tense my entire face to keep the weight from pulling my bottom lip down. As for the silliest thing, that has to be the shaving cream. It sounded like a great idea at the time. I didn't take into account how it would lather when water is applied. I spent a long time trying to wash it all out before giving up and jumping in the shower.
B-A-B: You sure do seem to have had a LOT figurines in your beard this year… did you buy them special or is there a private collection you tapped?
JHR: I do have a small collection of figurines but eventually I had to make a weekly ritual of hitting the discount bins at toy stores for new and relatively cheap material. When Christmas came around I found lots of little treats taped to my presents. Most of the material for the weeks on either side of the holiday was of those extra gifts.
B-A-B: What is YOUR favorite ‘in your beard’ post? *ours is still the conjunction in your beard, but it’s close to the cupcake and candle… we like the danger factor.
JHR: My absolute favorite was the Halloween post.
I knew I wanted to have a costume for my beard that day and decided on the jack-o-lantern headed mummy. I was planning on wearing it all day so I spent the day before fitting the head and building a little skeleton out of metal wires so I could pose it. That morning was spent braiding the skeleton into the beard, wrapping the arms, legs and torso and then attaching the face. It was the most work I put into any of the posts but it was very rewarding to do it.
B-A-B: Build-a-Beard got two spots on the montage… we are honored… do you read our blog? What’s your favorite post? #selfishquestion
JHR: Though I have sported a beard for several years now, I never though much about beard culture before starting IMB. I was amazed to see how many people were interested in beards. Since then I have been reading Build-a-Beard along with a few other sites. My favorite post was the one about the guy lifting small children with his beard. I felt that guy's pain.
B-A-B: There was a bald chin shot in the montage… when’s that from? Or are your follicle growing skills unmatched by mere humans?
JHR: Sadly I do not have super-human beard growing powers. The bald chin pic was my April Fools Day post. I wanted to fake shaving my beard so I photoshopped a friend's bald chin onto my face.
B-A-B: Finally, what’s next for “In My Beard”? Another year of awesome? Mass hysteria? A shoulder to cry on? TELL US!
JHR: The In My Beard project was a year long experiment and is now complete. The project archive will remain available on my site. If the good people of twitter continue to use the #inmybeard hash tag I may update the site to feature other user's pictures.
I will definitely be starting a new project soon but I haven't decided what that will be. I'm very open to suggestions and have even been talking with some of my DailyBooth and Twitter followers about ideas. Whatever I do next, I would like it to be a more interactive experience.
In short, I vote for mass hysteria. I think that would be a lot of fun.
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To catch the entire voyage from cover to cover... see below for the amazing montage that Josh put together to commemorate the end of such a hairy initiative and overarching devotion to the hirsute we can all be jealous of… take it away JHR: