“Doll making is an ancient tradition. My dolls are born on the threshold, existing in both worlds”
Radical Doll Making
I call myself a radical doll maker, connection the tradition back to it’s earliest roots. My dolls hold the same intentions that my foremothers placed into their dolls - hopes and intentions, sorrows and prayers. This tradition produced stone figurines such as the Woman of Willendorf and hundreds of thousands of bone and fur, blood and bone, twig and stone creations which didn't survive.
Dolls are born out of both worlds. When I make a doll I enter into that space between worlds, a place where my ancestors went and where future ancestors will also go - a place of collective memory. As we hold the intention of the doll we are creating we gather the story and the wisdom she is to hold. Sometimes they are characters we've never met, who are destined for a particular person and we, the artist, are just the messenger.
Doll making is a ritual, we are stepping on an ancestral path. I like to think there are certain dolls who embody a particular message or story, like symbols, which have appeared over the millennia - and are relevant, always powerful, always needed.
“Whether fashioned from clay or two sticks wound together with yarn and embellished with fabric, fur, feathers or shells, dolls are part of a tradition which stretches back over countless generations. In a world which has countless issues needing mediation the doll is a very relevant transitional object for those working to create new ways of working and living which honor the sacredness of life. The process of the art itself is a meditation which allows itself to be created with a weaving of intention. The doll offers many insights from how it is used to what it stands for. For those wishing to rebirth an ancient spirituality the doll is a figure whose roots lie in the very people who saw the world as female and that the doll can act as that figure to honor that outlook and allow an inspiration in embodying those ancient values into a modern world.”