This page was last updated on: April 2, 2010
Becoming a Doll Artist
I am a firm believer that there is not one of you who is not a doll artist.
Artistry is defined as the effect or the quality of workmanship. It is defined as the ability to excel at one's craft. Now each and every one of you get an effect in your work. Each and every one of you put your skills and ability into your dolls with excellence. It is your opinion of your work that keeps you from believing that you are an artist.
I am not sure that during his lifetime Picasso was not looked upon as a less than talented man who scribbled with paints on canvas and knew that what he created was not the "normal" art that those around him were creating. I am sure that his passion, his love of expressing himself, without comparison to others, is what made him and artist. And when Picasso looked upon himself as an artist, public opinion followed.
Artistry is that which we see, it is not the opinion of our own work, it is not public opinion. It is in the result. It is in what the doll says when you are done, it is in the process of creating the doll, and it is in the spirit with which we imbue the doll. Your eye can be trained. Your hands and heart will follow.
Once again, I urge you not to be hard on yourself as a doll maker. Doll artistry just takes practice, and as long as you think of yourself as less than an artist,you will see you dolls in that frame of mind. Making a doll from printed fabric is the the first step in becoming a doll artist. Make the doll. Then grab some beads, trinkets, fringe, charms, silk flowers , whatever, and dress the doll in that alone. Not only will the doll look great, you will familiarize yourself with the actual body lines, and you will understand costuming and artistry more.
Doll Artistry comes from two things. The first and most important is to express yourself through your dolls for YOU. The second is the willingness to grow into the craft through imagination, experimentation and practice. Developing vision, not sight, ----but vision when looking at dolls that you like and don't like is all part of the process. Take a second to look at some of the dolls you don't like. What is it about them that is not appealing to you? What filter do you run them through in your mind? What judgement do you place on them from the get go? All of this factors into your personal definition of dolls, not art.
Doll Artistry is about how you go about making your dolls.....I cannot say this enough. It is about the process, not the outcome. It is about taking each doll one step farther than the last. It is about sculpting the body even when it is not going to bee seen. It is sculpting it because you know it is there!
I like the works of Erte, Alphonse Mucha, and Chagall. But I can see the beauty in Picasso, feel the passion of Van Gogh and understand why one would paint a soup can ! It is all about individual expression. It is about making
dolls you love to make.
We are by human nature, judgmental, opinionated, critical, and sometimes mean spirited It is a product of our environment, our up bringing, and our experiences in life. Becoming doll artists does not change this. We are constantly bombarded by our need to be recognized and liked. Often times this need changes what we love to do, into what others want us to do. It sometimes changes us from who we are into who we think we are...and there is a difference.
We are our dolls if become doll artists. Our dolls express us. Wait before you say that that is a contradiction. Each of us has a way of being with everyone we interact with. We learn to be a certain way because our experience tells us that this person expects us to say this, do this, respond this way...our dolls not have that effect on us. They create themselves and their interaction with us is not judgmental, it is not critical. They are an art form coming into being. No more, no less. They are an extension of our innermost thoughts, our sense of humor, our manner of personal expression and our fantasies. They are reminders of gentler times. They are ways to say what we feel without words, sometimes in ways that others wonder at. They are ours, totally and completely.
You may find some of this redundant, it is. But just in case you did not hear me the first time...If you make dolls, if you love it, if you are gathering all the information and skills you want and need, if you are having fun...then you are a doll artist! If you approach doll artistry constantly as a pupil because you think you have a lot more to learn, then you are still a doll maker. If you approach doll making constantly as a pupil, with the desire to apply whatever it is you learn to your own dolls, then you are becoming a doll artist.
This is doll artistry, this is artistry. This is being an artist. Simple yes, but not always easy. You have to stop comparing yourself and your doll's to others. You have to learn the skills, you have to apply that which you learn that you find useful, and discard that which you learn that does not express you. But do it knowing that it is not the fault of the designer, or the dollmaker, it is a matter of taste, a matter of saying in fabric that which you want to say, and love saying it, even if everyone else does not love it, or like what you are saying with it.
