Doll

If I were anywhere near London, I would definitly want to go see the Sultan’s Elephant. It looks so amazing!

I found this tea towel when going through the stuff at my parents’ house. I liked it, so put it aside. Later I noticed the signature and looked it up on ebay- sure enough there is a whole lot of Tammis Keefe textiles. I love these!

I love the caligraphic look of this one-

oh no! I’m suppose to be clearing stuff out, not finding new things I want!

From The Frankie Files, this great patent drawing of a doll pattern and another of a sewn cat.

Marianna is doing some amazing dolls- here and here. All her artwork knocks my socks off, so when I saw that she had turned her talent to dolls- WoW!

Rosa posted a link to Ryoko Ishii’s site. Wonderful painted dolls. I need to go back and spend an hour looking at everything.

I can’t remember where I found this link about painting your shoes, but this may be in my future.

this one (above) is about 6″ x 7″ and this one (below) is bigger- about 10″ x 14″. I’m working on putting the border on the Queen Bee.

Little Birds has an excellent posting about taking good photos for your blog. I need to reread it regularly.

Here at Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison are some incredible photos.

Some more of the artists I met at NIADA-

Floyd Bell is an artist who works in wood… that impresses me right there. There is something about a wooden doll- I can so easily imagine all the slips of a blade that might ruin a piece and so I am amazed at the finished artwork! He did a wonderful slide presentation about his progress in dollmaking.

Tomoko Fukuda is a doll maker from Japan. She works in cloth so I was immediately interested in her work. Pictures of her work are in my NIADA gallery here, here and this is from her display at the showroom. Her work is able to get across complex emotions so clearly- jealousy, sibling rivalry, pride, family relationships.

I bought her book-

and she signed it for me-

Sandra Thomas Oglesby had a piece in the “One Heart, One World” show that I haven’t been able to get out of my mind- I love this guy! Hopefully in this picture you can see the crossed fingers! And the shoes! Okay, I’m gushing….

It was really fun to meet Chomick and Meder and see their work. They were incredibly positive and willing to answer any question for us visiting artists- about suppliers, techniques and were especially great at the critique. I really appreciated the thoughtful comments on my work.

Lastly, for today, Here is some of the stuff I bought for myself!

patches-

and totally cool glass buttons-

I’m going to start posting about dollmakers I met in Philadelphia, in no particular order. I have a pile of business cards, postcards and a few magazines and I’m going to start shuffling through the pile.

These dolls are made by Leslie Molen of Rootie Studio. Here is a much better picture! These dolls just pulled you in- they have such sweet faces and expression. Also beautiful hair and costuming. Well, I could go on and on I guess, but then I’ll never get through!

One of the first people I met when I got to Philadelphia was Maryanne Oldenburg- what a friendly and welcoming person she was. She helped me feel part of the event right from the beginning. And what a sweet pea her little fellow was!

I met several artists who do minature work. This is an area of dollmaking that I had never appreciated before. I don’t think I could have without seeing them in person. There was Gisele Hanson, whose work was next to mine at the critique. She is obviously a very patient person since she never said a word about having to answer all my dumb email questions before getting to Philadelphia- she was one of the contact people for the conference, a job I don’t envy!

There were 2 NIADA artists who do minatures at the Philadelphia show. Jane Davies, who did the demonstration of minature sewing and showed this amazing creation-

The other artist was Susan Scogin who showed this piece-

I never had a chance to talk with her, but was amazed by how much life she could put into something so little!

Now that my workshop is finished I can get a few other things done… well actually my list is about a mile long!

I’ve put together an album of my photos from NIADA. I took tons of pictures but somehow came home with none of some amazing work. Luckily I’ve got links to some other peoples photo galleries if I need to remember.

Photos are here.

This flower bloomed yesterday! Wow!

Check out all the links at Spirit Dancing about an event to celebrate the centenary of Jules Vernes death. Giant Dolls, oops, I mean puppets! I spent way too much time looking at all the pictures.

Go see Howl’s Moving Castle.

I am always excited when I see that Scott Radke has posted something new on his journal. Today he has posted some new dolls. Wow!

More about yesterday’s busy day… In the afternoon, I went to the viewing at Skinner Auction House. Many dolls and so many teddy bears. If I could have left with one item, it would have been this beautiful lady- referred to as a creche figure.

I love her face and hands… well,and her dress and proportions and really everything about her!

These veggie dolls were pretty cool too.

After looking at dolls, a quick stop at an orchid greenhouse- delicious!