Art Doll with a Doll

This week I completed Art Doll with a Doll. This piece reminded me that once you finish a piece she then belongs to the viewer.

Art Doll with Doll

The reason I say this, is that I posted her image on some of my social media sites, and almost instantly received a message to purchase the “mother and baby” piece.  I have to admit it took me second to realize that the writer, a soon to be grandparent, meant the doll I had just posted. This pair is now reserved for that viewer, but she will first appear in my gallery feature show in May with a red dot on her label.

Work In Progress (WIP)

Creating for a gallery show, I always like to push myself to stretch a bit.  My recent experimentation with a polymer clay face for my doll “Snow Day”, intrigued me.  I purchased a package of paperclay.  I have been wanting to try this air dry clay on an art doll for a while now. I will be working metal into the final composition of this piece , but her beginning is a bit different from my usual forged copper face and hands. The rest of the body construction for this art doll will follow my same form of a wire skeleton with padding and clothes sewn on.

paperclay head

head and hands drying

I chose paperclay after thinking about my first figure sculpture to cross into the art doll realm, No Rag Doll.  That doll as you may recall was a stuffed doll with a wire skeleton and a brass foil sculpted face. With her inner support to hold herself upright, she was a rag doll that wasn’t floppy at all. In using paperclay I am playing with the idea of a paper doll, but since she is rendered in three dimensions she is nothing like the flat counterparts from which I am drawing inspiration.  Her connection to paper also stems from a literary catalyst, but I’ll share more about that when I post her completed images.