I
make dolls! I’m a grown woman and I love dolls and I make them and
dress them and invent little stories about them and eventually put them
in my Etsy store and
sell them. (Otherwise they’d take over my apartment and talk to me at
night and keep me from sleeping with all their demands for care and
attention and goodnight stories like they did when I was little. I
recently read a poem with a line that said something about ‘that dream
you’ve been having since childhood/ with open fields and unending sky.’
Well, that sounds lovely and pastoral, but the dream I’ve been having
since childhood is that I walk into a bathroom in my Osh’Kosh overalls
and there are three beautiful Vegas-type showgirls in the tub, all
hissing and lizardy with sequins and elaborate headdresses and they
convince me to get in the bath, even though I know in my heart they
intend me harm, and then they pull the plug and I get sucked down the
drain wherein there are candles on tilting platforms and I have to stay
straight as a reed to keep from being set on fire. I was a strange
child.)
Ahem! Pictures (my elliptical thought patterns; could
make for excessively long blog entries…) Pictures! Above is a doll I
sold recently: Arabella, the bird girl.
Her head, torso and
lower limbs were sculpted of polymer clay (Sculpey.) Her upper limbs
are made from pipe-cleaners, which have been wrapped with fabric. I
then sew the clothes (in this case made from beautiful black, pure
dupioni silk) directly onto her body, paint the features and attach her
wig (mohair.) I’m particularly proud of her feet, wide yet delicate
with painted toes! My husband says she looks like Bjork, with her
slanted, elvish eyes. She now lives with a lovely lady in North
Carolina. You can see more pictures of Arabella on my Esty site.
I'm always happy to share doll-making ideas (I wanted to post a
tutorial, but haven't yet figured out how to put pictures in order) so
if you have any qusetions, I'd be happy to answer!