Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Back to Dolls

 
With one doll exhibit at Alta Bates Hospital in Berkeley closing and another one on the horizon in February at the Olive Hyde Gallery in Hayward, I decided I'd better get some new dolls put together. This one is sculpted cloth with a second layer of gauze "skin" on her face. She is a tribute to admired and influential women, from ancient history to present day.
 
 
 
 

 
She is holding a bird about to take flight and represents the feminine spirit, feminine intellect, and feminine creativity. The hanging name tags on her skirt include the names of: Jane Austen, Margaret Mead, Emily Dickinson, Betty Friedan, Martha Graham, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Gertrude Stein, Gloria Steinem, Frido Kahlo, Sandra Day O'Connor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Billie Jean King, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Blackwell, Helen Keller, Rosa Parks, Michele Obama, Babe Didrikson, Amelia Earhart, Florence Nightengale, Harriet Tubman, Mary Magdalene, Eleanor Roosevelt, Marie Curie, Indira Gandhi, Queen Victoria, Joan of Arc, Mother Theresa, Margaret Thatcher, Clare Boothe Luce, Oprah Winfrey, Maya Angelou, Hillary Clinton, Madeleine Albright and Golda Meir. Hmmm, there are so many more... maybe another doll?
 
 
The medallion at her waist says it all. "Celebrating Women, the Sacred Femine, and the Right Brain." However, she also represents the celebration of all women... mothers, daughters, sisters, aunts, nieces, friends...
 
 
The second cloth sculptured doll I made celebrates the Muse. The box base contains both literature and music—she guides the pen—and holds the key to great inspiration.
 




 
I also made a couple of new altered bottles
embellished with shells, pearls,
and fibers representative of the sea.
 

 
I love decorating the bottles
and have many more ideas
of ones I want to make.
 


I love the sea...
have spent many an hour just staring at it...
and these bottles trigger fond memories
from my youth... of days spent at my grandparents
home on the Pacific Coast.
 


 
 
 

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