Steampunk Fair

Here is an event that will surely be of interest to doll makers - The Steampunk World's Fair. This will be held in Piscataway, NJ, May 18-20, 2012. At $50 for the weekend, this has to be one of the least expensive admission fees around.

There will cakes and costumes, and music and merchants. Too late to apply as a vendor for this year - but maybe for next....? No list of vendors yet - but there will surely be dolls. I mean, surely. {I wish they put links to more pictures from the past events on the site, and a list of last years vendors and merchants. That would be useful.}

Nigrica Little Folk of Faery

Here's a sweet Etsy store, Little Folk of Faery. It looks like someone has been out with their butterfly net capturing those pesky fairies and bottling them. They are ever so tiny, and I assume still just as magical.

This store, relatively new, is part of the Whimsical Art Doll Artisans team, which is dedicated to "the most curious, bizarre, eccentric, fairy tale-esque elements of life". Some familiar faces, others new.

Treasury alert

Here's a lovely Art Dolls Only member made treasury for the New Year.

I hope everyone's holiday has been grand so far.

Text Enhance Opt Out

OK. You can opt out of seeing Text Enhance on your computer (supposed to be "creating relationships between vendors and consumers" - right, thanks for the effort.)
Slowly mouse over the link until the te box appears. There is a small ? in the top right. Click on that and you get taken to an opt out page.

Thank you for your patience, and I can't see them now.

Text Dis-Enhance

OK Blogger has put Text Enhance into my blog - I may have allowed it, but it was unintentional on my part.

It's annoying and sometimes the links are counter to what I might have wanted to post - to commercial sites I haven't visited or considered. Nor am I sponsoring any of the "survey for a gadget" links.

If you hover over a linked word and it says "powered by Text Enhance" it is NOT my link. Click at your own risk.

Meanwhile I am going to try and take it off, but I have to research how.

That is all.

All Dolls Are Art 2012

Registration has been open for a little over a month for the next All Dolls Are Art conference July 26-29 in Austin, TX.

The theme of the conference is "World of Make Believe". Oooh, luscious.

The teachers include (wait for the trumpet!) Arley Berryhill, Annie Hesse, Marilynn Huston, Angela Jarecki, Fran Parrigan-Meehan, Lisa Renner and Christine Shively. Like a who's who, isn't it?

There are various other activities including a Pin Doll swap, sales floor and exhibits, and events to benefit Austin Children's Shelter, including a silent auction.

Yoborobo

In the cause of the holidays, and as an antidote to a certain commercial mass produced doll that leaves a bad taste in my mouth - all to do with creating fear in children - I've been looking at Elf Dolls.

I just found this terrifically cute Etsy store of seller Yoborobo. There are some sweet elvish monsters in cloth and felts as well as some very pretty and bargain priced little jointed polymer clay dolls.

Maggie Iacono to be Honored at IDEX

Maggie Iacono of Maggie Made Dolls will be presented with the 2012 Lifetime Achievement Award by Dolls Magazine at IDEX in January, 2012.

A NIADA member since 1993, Maggie is inspirational not only because of the delicate beauty of her ball jointed pressed felt dolls, but also because she has managed to create a genuinely prosperous business that supports her family from doll artistry. Or to put it another way, she makes a living as an artist, doing what she loves.

Congratulations on the well deserved honor.

Black Eyed Kids Kickstarter Project

OK not dolls, but I know that there are a lot of Goth and Creepy doll artists out there who would dig the theme and visuals of this young lady filmmaker. I mean seriously - look at the poster right? She wants to make a horror movie with a microbudget. She has three days to go and she needs just over $4000 to get her full funding. Can you help by pledging any small amount and/or spreading the word?

Disclaimer: I don't know Sunshine personally. I just like to encourage enterprise and creativity in kids. Plus in her You Tube profile she talks about all my favorite books as her own!

Embroider Everything Workshop - book review

For the first time, I've been asked to review a book that might be of interest to doll makers. I'm so happy to be able to report that the book is beautiful!

Sewist Diana Rupp, creator of the Sew Everything Workshops, including her prior book of that name, has written "Embroider Everything Workshop", a comprehensive guide for beginner or aspiring embroiderers.

My late mother made counted cross stitch, producing about eight sweet embroidered bibs for my newborn and two crib blankets that were so pretty that I hung them. My daughter is now 12, and considers these to be her family heirlooms.  In a world where machine embroidered articles are available at many stores for very little money, I understand that the true value of embroidering monograms on dishtowels, or making small patches for your kid's jackets, is the love imbued in the process. Diana describes embroidery in part as meditative, and I have to agree that I feel that too when I embroider on my dolls and their costumes.

The work is a comprehensive introduction assuming no prior experience, and includes needlepoint, smocking and counted thread cross stitch as well as freehand linear and chain stitch based embroidery. Personally I would consider myself more than an absolute novice, but certainly not a proficient. So although I had some familiarity with some of the basic stitches, there is a lot more in the book that was new to me, especially the tips and tricks interspersed throughout.

I appreciated the clear diagrams of stitches in the first one third of the book, and the detailed information about different kinds of needles, threads and canvases. I learnt a lot of new stitch names, and enjoyed the historical info about embroidery and textiles that is featured along the way. Diana Rupp's passion for her vocation comes through in personal snippets about her journey and preferences.

The rest of the book is how-to projects designed for beginners to practice their new skills. Most of these are short and accessible for gifts, useful home wares, and a bit of fashion using different embroidery techniques. My favorite project in the book is the embroidered pet portrait, making an absolutely custom piece of textile art based on a photo of your pet, and demonstrating the skills to make custom embroidery designs from any photo. This is the kind of work that no mass-producing factory situation can duplicate.

Finally there is a series of brief Appendices detailing finishing, blocking and display techniques, some fonts for monograms,  and a useful index. The book is bound in one of my favorite crafting formats, the way I want my book to be bound when it is published, with a lay flat hard cover over spiral bound pages.

The special extras are an envelope of 48 pretty iron-on transfers as patterns and a pull out stitch practice card into which you are invited to poke holes. I'm not certain of the utility of this last item, since it is considerably stiffer than fabric and would not really facilitate some of sewing stitches. However it could be used as a template for practice stitches on fabrics, or a portable stitch guide.

So all in all, a useful, informative and pretty addition to a textile artisan's library.

Paper Doll books publisher

I love vintage style paper dolls, because I've been a costume designer. Historical paper doll books are such a fun way to do your research into historical costuming. I also like going back to original sources, like period magazines and other visual media - but paper dolls are just fun.

Here is Paper Studio Press. They have a bunch of very pretty looking paper dolls divided into categories, including movie stars and fashion eras. I'd like to use them in collage work. Read the Artists' bios to learn another secret of their charm - the dolls have been painted by some terrific illustrators and much of the art is vintage. The artists themselves almost all seem to have shared a childhood passion for paper dolls and art.

You Tube Cornucopia

I've only just come to realize what a tremendous resource You Tube can be for doll artists. A search of the phrase "art dolls" produces 19,600 results. Many of these video producers also link to artist's sites and stores.

Tutorials are very popular. Still Moments Nursery, a reborning studio, is one such producer. Nikki Holland has uploaded almost 300 videos on the Still Moments channel including many tutorials and how-to's filled with tips and tricks.

Others are more like news magazines, such as this mini-documentary from Russia Media rounding up art doll making in Russia with interviews and beautiful visuals, or this visit to a doll museum collection in Toronto (above).

Doll artists can make a video slideshow galleries and catalogs of their work, set to enjoyable music, like this adorable one from past featured Cart Before the Horse, or the sublime Anna Zueva.

Collectors show videos of their doll collections or visits to conventions, while stores display their merchandise.

Looking at all these, I suddenly feel like a luddite who has yet to step into the 21st Century. I have a video camera, and editing software.

Do you have favorite You Tube videos about dolls or doll making? Please share in the comments!

New Beaded Work In Progress

Ralonda Patterson has just contacted me with an invitation to follow the realization of her latest large scale doll project through her blog. She is a beautiful bead artist, and expects the journey of this doll to be of great interest to other doll artists. As she puts it, "I am excited to share this experience with you and  hope you will find inspiration and insight into your own process as you create."


I'm following, as I love seeing WIP's and learning about others' creative processes. See you there!

Paper Doll Book

Illustrator and painter Emily Winfield Martin makes prim-with-an-edge cloth dolls and maintains the Black Apple blog and her Curious Art Etsy store. Recently Random House has published her illustrated crafting book: "The Black Apple's Paper Doll Primer" filled with whimsical paper dolls for you to color cut and play with in many sweet and creative ways.

Crafts Marketing List

From Moiracoon's charming shop. I rather like it this close to Halloween, 

even though it has no particular reference to the content of the post.

It's not strictly dolls, but it is a fantastically useful resource. Moiracoon, mixed media and quirky jewelry designer (dare I say another steampunk adjacent aesthetic) has created an extensive list on her blog of online arts and crafts marketing resources. Who knew there were so many marketplaces? I've bookmarked the post for future reference. She also has two Etsy stores (this is one, you can find the other in her profile.)

Artistic classes

The new online classes at A for Artistic are really beautiful and full of techniques that can be applied to other projects.

Starting soon is Marlaine Verhelst's "Your Own Horse". This features a kit with the basic horse shapes and other important materials. Also upcoming in November, "Creating a Hardscape Costuming" with Marilyn Radzat (pictured), "The Gatherer" with Cindee Moyer, and "If the Shoe Fits" with Diane Keeler.

Where else can you find all these eminent people gathered under one virtual roof?

Candy dolls

Thanks go to Shari Harel, who has sent me notice of a series very special events coming up in November of intense interest to doll collectors.

Theriault's Antique Doll Auctions will be presenting for auction "Many Wonderful Things" 19th and early 20th Century dolls and automata on Saturday November 19, 2011, and  "To the Manor Born" 350 Madame Alexander dolls from Candy Spelling's spectacular collection  on Sunday November 20, 2011 at the historic Waldorf-Astoria in New York. These gorgeous MA dolls will be on display, open to the public, for 2 hours that morning from 9am-11am, after which the auction will commence.

Catalogs featuring the dolls from both auctions are available from the Theriault's website. (There are some nice links to informative sites there also.)

The press release description of Candy Spelling's well chosen and cared for collection makes me wish I had the wherewithal to participate:

"early portrait models such as Victorian Bride, red-haired Pink Champagne lady, Judy portrait, and Deborah Ballerina. There are Godey ladies and gentlemen, rare models from the Coronation series including Estrella, dolls from the Me and My Shadow series including Mary Louise, Victoria and Agatha. “Most of these dolls are so rare that they only appear on the market every ten years or so”, notes cataloguer Florence Theriault, adding “And to find them in such impeccable condition is just pure pleasure”.

The collection also includes four examples, Rachel, Joseph, Ruth and David, from the rare biblical series, a number of Wendy models inspired by Gone with the Wind including Aunt Pitty-Pat, Cousin Grace¸ Nana, Cousin Karen, and Aunt Agatha, and a baker’s dozen of rare dolls created exclusively for FAO Schwarz during the 1950s. There are plentiful and exquisite examples of the Alexander fashion icons, Cissy, Elise and Cissette, and legendary Alexander models costumed by the couturiers of the Ice Capades. The 8” Alexander child charmer, Wendy-kins, has been a special favorite of Candy Spelling, and rare and bountiful examples are offered including fashionable children, ballerinas, storybook princesses, brides, clowns, and dolls in historical fashions."

On Saturday November 19th, in the evening Candy Spelling herself will attend a Gala Reception, ready to sign copies of the catalog, to be held at Alexander Doll Company in New York - with the opportunity available to make more special purchases.
Please call 800-638-0422 or email info@theriaults.com to RSVP.

Debate at Dolls

"Arriving at the Grand" by Joan Greene

Winner Fashion Dolls $500 and under.

Here is an interesting article and subsequent discussion over at Dolls magazine, the current issue of which has just come out online. Stephanie Finnegan is asking about the fine line between definitions and words. Do you define yourself as a maker or an artist or something else? What is the difference between an Art Doll and a Sculptural Figure? Could be fun.

You can also see a video illustrating the Dolls Awards of Excellence 2011 and revealing some cool news about plans at Dolls for the future.

Kaliningrad

Here is the site of recent follower, Oksana of Koenig-Artdoll. The dolls that she makes, from polymer and paper clays, wood and all natural textiles, stuffed with sawdust and embellished with encrustations of beads, are so beautiful and delicate looking. Where many other European doll makers tend to the lean and pointed (also beautiful!), Oksana's sweet faced figures have round baby faces, with tiny features, reminiscent of antique dolls from Victorian times. But the clothes are far more aesthetically linked to Russian and European folk art and I want to say Rococo, than Victorian costume.

I notice that she credits past featured Anna Zueva as one of her teachers.

Just looking at beautifully made, gorgeous dolls never gets old at all.

Froud in New York

Ah, fortunate denizens of New York and environs, you have two opportunities in the near future to participate in one day workshops with Wendy Froud.

The days are Saturday, November 19th or 26th at the Animazing Gallery in Soho.

Animazing Gallery is hosting an Art of the Frouds exhibit from early December to mid-February. All of this is to celebrate the Froud's book. Also visit the Facebook page.