Amoreena

~Lately I've been thinking how much I miss my lady
Amoreena's in the cornfield brightening the daybreak~ 

This one is a very special cloth-and-clay doll that came together in a very surprising way. I had a sudden opportunity to participate in a couple of doll events that will coincide with the NIADA conference coming up in Portland this July, but have not been making many dolls lately. I had started this one several years ago, but only had sewn and stuffed the basic body and applied the clay, then added the striped legs. I wasn't sure where it was going and lost my momentum… so sadly, her lifeless form was laying in a box for years. With little time till deadline, and wanting to bring something new to show, I picked her up again and made some quick decisions. Soon, she was guiding me and telling me what to use next.

First came the skirt, a vintage hankie once owned by my mother-in-law. It looked great with the black-and-white striped legs. Pulling the colors from that floral print, I used chartreuse sari silk and used one of my favorite techniques to wrap her upper arms and sash the upper bodice. Then I found a delicious piece of deep pink velvet ribbon attached to a large lace collar in my vintage fabrics box and clipped it free. As I worked on clipping those threads, I realized this very old velvet ribbon was also silk. Most scrumptious! It was delicate and worn in places, but I wrapped it snugly and used tiny hand stitches to hold it in place.

As I started work on this doll, the "event" I was getting her ready for, a "Tea Party" hosted by local doll artists for attendees of the NIADA conference, spawned a "pop-up" doll show which will be held for two short weeks at Guardino Gallery. Labels needed to be printed, so this piece needed a name. Playing in the background while I worked was one of my old Elton John albums, Tumbleweed Connection… specifically, a song called Amoreena. And with that, she had her name.

~Living like a lusty flower, running through the grass for hours,

rolling through the hay like a puppy child~

She told me she absolutely had to have red ballet slippers… so I painted first with black gesso, then deep crimson acrylic paint. 

~I can see you sitting eating apples in the evening,
the fruit juice flowing slowly, slowly, slowly down the bronze of your body~

She's got a black tulle petticoat to keep that skirt fluffed out, and a little touch of striped ribbon as a waist sash. The last little shiny bit is a vintage pink rhinestone button. But her crowning glory is that hair. LOVE the Tibetan lamb's curly locks. It was my first time using it, but it was a dream to work with and looks exactly perfect.

~And she dreams of crystal streams,
of days gone by when we would lean
laughing fit to burst upon each other~

(Lyrics between the ~ marks~ from the song, Amoreena, by Elton John and Bernie Taupin)

Corazon

This is not the first doll I've made since doing Jane DesRosier's (aka "Gritty Jane") cloth-and-clay doll workshop, but is the first I've made from Jane's pattern. I call her Corazon... as she was inspired by Frida Kahlo and especially by my sitting for many hours drooling over the book, Self Portrait in a Velvet Dress: Frida's Wardrobe: Fashion from the Museo Frida Kahlo. 

I knew I would have to give this doll a long full skirt with a deep flounce of antique lace at the hem. Aside from that, I know she doesn't resemble Frida much, except for the slight homage in the hairstyle and red rose accessory. Here are some WIP photos... am still actually adding more finishing details and getting her ready to list.

Duffy

Duffy is down on his luck... times are hard, you know. He's making a living selling snake oil, whiskey, and whatever else he can convince someone to buy. He's even sold his only suit of clothes... and had to make himself a new suit out of old newspapers.

This doll was made as a gift for my son's 29th birthday. I let this one "evolve" and sort of create himself. I only started out with a few main ideas... that it had to be about 12 inches tall, and intended to hang on a wall... and it had to be male (a first for me).

I had a stack of old newspaper, circa 1900 and older, that my grandmother had saved, and was inspired to somehow incorporate that. It is so old and brittle that the only way was to use lots of gel medium and collage it to brown craft paper.

I first had to design his suit, so created a craft paper pattern, sewn on the machine, with seams on the outside. Decided I liked that look... so the final newspaper suit has the same exterior seaming.

I clipped some of my favorite ads from that newspaper, including one for "Duffy's Pure Malt Whiskey... for medicinal purposes only!", which became part of the left front leg of his pants. I started calling him Duffy in my head after that... and it stuck.




Construction is as follows: Wire armature, cotton batting, sculpted paperclay, vintage newspaper, craft paper, gel medium, acrylic paint, wool fleece, cloth, polymer clay.

Aunt Mimsy - 2006

This is the first doll of my current collection that is entirely finished. The design was inspired in part by Denise Marie Warner's Oh La La Garden Fairy, which was the cover feature in Art Doll Quarterly's Spring 2006 issue.

Aunt Mimsy is constructed from a basic wire armature... foil, tape and cotton batting... wrapped with cloth, attached to an old candle holder base. The head is cloth, with a sculpted mask made from polymer clay, detailed and accented with acrylic paint. She is clothed in wrapped strips of lush velvets and skirted with velvet, tencel and ribbon. Details include a snippet of antique lace that belonged to my grandmother, an antique button at the bodice, and a "dingle ball" for her little handbag (dingle balls have snaps on them and were once for holding mink stoles in place, circa 1930-ish). I've used various ribbons and silk flowers for her collar, bustle, underskirt and bonnet.

She was exhibited at the Columbia Gorge Art Festival in Corbett, Oregon in May of 2006.