Best Wearable Art

For about a month now, it's been possible to get stoned (the old-fashioned, Biblical way) just for being a woman in possession of a head covering. After all, it's widely rumored that Osama bin Laden's three wives cover their heads, and they don't use Old Glory for the swaddling, by God. The bravest moral response to such scarfphobia would be for everyone to wear exotic, colorful head scarves: The peckerwoods, of course, won't oblige, so they'll be easy targets in their NASCAR and Coors billed caps. The classiest decoys reside on the head and shoulders of fourteen-year-old Teija Cheung, who was spotted last summer at a downtown Kansas City wearable-art festival with her original woven scarves trucked over from Lawrence. Cheung -- whose midriff-baring black top revealed a henna sun tattooed around her navel -- wore a shawl made of pricey Italian yarns called "flora" (flower shapes dangle from the fibers) and "dazzle" (a shiny, metallic yarn). "It's something wild and funky, something to spice up an outfit," Cheung says of her art. Her mom, standing nearby, chimes in. "It's about not having any rules about the kinds of yarns you put together -- a lot of people are real conservative. It's a general rule to conceal the ends -- cut and tie, cut and tie. She doesn't and it dangles off the sides." The artist has been knitting and weaving since age six, when she made her first scarf as a birthday present for her sister. She doesn't have a shop yet, but she works for a woman in Lawrence who dips and hand-dyes yarns. Cheung's prices range from about $35 to $60 for pieces named Arabian Days and Copper Spring. "I name all my scarves according to what they remind me of," she says. Watch for them at arts festivals.