For those of you following my traveling doll work at my art dolls group, Art Dolls Only, here is the story and photos for the second doll I worked on, Isabella. She started in Tasmania with Susie McMahon, a very talented art doll/sculptor/artist it has been my privilege to work with. She was, well, naked at that point, with a lovely face and hair. She then went to Nicole Johnson in Upstate New York, another lovely and very talented artist, who gave her some beautiful, very colorful tattoos and ratted her hair into a crazy bird's nest. She added a clay bird with a nest and an egg that sits atop her head. From there she came to me, and this is her story from that point.
Isabella arrived in Vermont hoping for sunny skies and high temperatures. After being in Buffalo with Nicole, she couldn't think of anything she wanted to be rid of more than the blasted SNOW! No luck. Upon taking her out of the box, I actually heard her let out quite a sigh, "Not again!" Here in Vermont it was 25 degrees and 2 feet of snow when she arrived. Sorry about that Isabella. I put her up on the shelf for a few days, not knowing how to make her happy. I painted the walls of my work room, hoping to attract more light. I tidied everything up, hoping that something would come to me, some way to make her smile. Nope. finally after she had been here a few nights, I had a dream that the thing that she needed was a surfboard! She doesn't really look like a surfer. More an old fashioned girl. But why not? A doll has a right to some fun. I haven't been to Tasmania, her home of origin, but I am pretty sure the Australian coast is the land of the surfer. Lucky for Isabella, I just so happened to have a doll-sized surfboard on hand. Only trouble was, Isabella can't stand!
Well, the obvious thing to me was to build her a beach chair, attach it to the surfboard and fashion her up a surf chair. Well, about this time, the parrot on her head started chattering and squawking. He was fine with the surfing, liking water and all, but he really doesn't like to get too much afternoon sun; bleaches his feathers, he claims. We don't actually have too much afternoon sun here in Vermont this time of year, and nowhere to surf either, for that matter. But not wanting an unpleasant parrot on my hands, I thought the thing to do was to give the surf chair an umbrella, which would shade the parrot, and look nice attached to the beach chair. He seems pretty happy with this arrangement. The trim matches his feathers and that pleases him immensely.
In the meantime, Isabella needed some clothes. I'm not one to leave a naked doll sitting around in the chill. Except for some lovely tattoos she was showing off, Isabella arrived pretty naked. I gave her some underwear: Long knickers and a camisole, careful to keep the tattoos, which she is so proud of, on display. She tells me she likes this set-up and it reminds her a bit of summer clothes, which she would be wearing this time of year in Tasmania.
I also gave her a skirt from some vintage fabric I had in my stash. Remarkably it has the colors of her tattoos in the print, so though quite busy in pattern, it matches in an odd way. So far, so good. I figured I had better stop there or there would be nothing for Colleento do in New Orleans. Besides, Isabella is getting quite antsy.
She really is not happy in this northern clime and insists she is on her way to somewhere warm and sunny. She tells me first chance she gets she'll hitch a ride to the coast and set sail in her surf chair, hoping to find good waves and good company, the kind that prefers sunny warm weather. Good luck, Isabella! I wish you well!
I've already mentioned I am participating in Art Dolls Only's Traveling Doll Project this year. If you haven't already been over to see the TDP blog please check it out. I spent a few weeks profiling each of the participating artists (which you will find in the January archives for the blog). There are some truly amazing artists joining in this year. The starting dolls and their stories are now starting to show and there are some really terrific dolls making their rounds around the country and some around the world.
My starting doll for the project is called Delta Dawn, named and themed after the 70s hit of the same name. I had in mind a woman who had made some unfortunate choices in life and had basically lost her mind.
I made a 12" cloth headless doll, clothed her in some fancy knickers and a pair of rainboots and sent her off to New Orleans to the next person in my group, Colleen Downs of Loopy Boopy. You can head over to Colleen's blog to see what she has done with Dawn. She has done a truly smashing job, and I am thrilled to say she attached quite a lovely head to my otherwise pretty boring doll. The doll, now with a LoopyBoopy head, quite simply, is beautiful! I am so happy! Next stop for Dawn will be, believe it or not, Tasmania! Susie McMahon of Susie McMahon Dolls a fabulous artist from across the world will be working her magic on Dawn in a month or so. Can't wait to see what she does! From there, on to Nicole Johnson of Mealy Monster Land, another amazing artist from New York, and then back home to me! Can't wait to see how these other ladies interpret my doll. Very, very excited!
Not really the famous part, but it's fun to say :) I got featured and blogged about today at the Art Dolls Only Blog (Art Dolls Only). Sarah Young of Youngish (Youngish) contacted me and sent me questions to answer, and voila, I am a featured artist! Thanks, ADO, thanks, Sarah!
On another ADO note, the Traveling Doll Project for 2010 (Traveling Doll Project) has started as of early this month. The groups have been sorted, the rules have been set, the deadlines made, and the blog is ready to go again for another round. For those who don't know what a traveling doll is, let me explain. Groups of 6 artists or less have each member begin a doll. Each person decides for themselves how much of that doll they will interpret and complete. At the same time, they begin a journal with their ideas, inspiration, thoughts about the doll and so on. After one month's time, they send the incomplete doll to the next person on their list. Each person works on each of the dolls until each person has had it in their hands. It then returns to the originator. During the process, the journals are added to by each person and each person photos and blogs about their portion of each doll. On my team, there are 2 returning artists (Colleen Downs of Loopy Boopy Art (Loopy Boopy Art) and Nicole Johnson from Mealy Monster Land(Mealy Monster Land)) from last year's round and 2 new (Susie McMahon from Susie McMahon Dolls (Susie McMahon Dolls) and me). I am very excited. I got so excited, I raised my hand and said I would profile on the blog each participating artist, which is over 25! So, for the next 25 days or so, please go over to the Traveling Doll Project blog (ADO Traveling Doll Project) and check out how fab each of the artists is. I plan to do a bang-up job profiling each of them, and they deserve it. There are really some marvelous people in this group. Hands down, this it the most creative group of folks I have ever hung with. Writing about them all feels very inspiring, and is helping me avoid making shoes for my Ben Franklin doll. I really don't like making shoes...
