Techno savvy ladies

Today is Ava Lovelace Day, a day where bloggers all over the world are celebrating women in technology. It is interesting for me, in the context of doll making because it seems to me that the majority of doll designers and artisans seem to be women. Certainly the majority of doll collectors that I know about are women, at least here in the US. My clients so far have all been women. Doll making seems in many ways to be a very feminine art, and many of the collectible dolls, like fashion dolls, seem to be concerned with feminine stuff, like...well...women's fashion.

It seems to me that we doll makers use a lot of technology, and the fruits of technology - sewing machines, polymer clay, cloth from mills, paints and dyes, wire, porcelain clays and kilns, vinyl and molding technologies. Not to mention how we in general have embraced that most modern of technologies the computer and internet to connect, to sell, to teach and to explore.

And yet so often we return to the simplest of technologies, holding needle and thread in our hands.

Meanwhile here is an art doll maker who is not afraid to explore the technology of new materials. Susie McMahon's dolls, figures and sculptures are wonderful. Check out her Redivivus dolls which she has made from recycled material that she has concocted.