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Who, me ?
I cannot remember not being able to draw. From childhood I always seemed to
have a pencil in my hand. Or a book.
I discovered theatre when
I was fifteen which satisfied all my hungers for making art, exploring other
people's lives and sharing the worlds that existed in my head. I earned a
Bachelor of Fine Art at the University of Kansas and spent the next several
years designing costumes in and around Chicago.
Moving back to Oklahoma,
I earned a Masters in Fine Art from the University of Oklahoma. For many
years more I designed scenery as well as costumes from Oklahoma City to
Houston to Alabama to Maine to New York. Along the way I taught stage makeup
in six universities. Talk about perfect training for a dollmaker!
Touring the Christmas
store windows in New York one December I saw a huge nativity scene,
encompassing an entire mountainside populated with dozens of costumed dolls.
I later learned such elaborate dioramas have been a popular tradition in
Europe for centuries. I determined to build one. I bought several boxes of
Super Sculpy polymer clay and sealed my fate. Dollmaking employs all
my skills - sewing, sculpting, painting, costuming, modelmaking, color and
design.
I have entered several
challenges which require soft dolls, winning some ribbons and "making the
tour" but I found I preferred to work in polymer. I was never that
crazy about hand sewing. Recently I discovered the joys of an air-dry clay
called cold porcelain.
Now I divide my time
between writing and dollmaking; both feel like the most natural evolvement
from theatre design. And I add something or someone to my nativity almost every year. |
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Artist's
Statement
I
believe the primary function of art is to illuminate the human condition.
The bromide is true; we
do not live in a vacuum. We live in continual exchange of influence with
other people and our environment. I've always been fascinated by people, by
what they communicate in the movement and expression of their faces and
bodies. To help others see what I have seen is the most important thing I
can do. I believe this is what artists do.
I suspect I pledged my
life to art at a very early age under the influence of beautiful children's
books. My imagination feasted on fairy tales and the worlds I glimpsed
through the windows of their illustrations.
In my teens, theatre became my art of choice. Being more interested in
observing than being, I preferred designing over acting. I loved watching
the audience react to my work, which an actor cannot do.
The transition from
costume design to dollmaking is but a single step, mostly a matter of scale.
Plus, now I get to design the actors myself. They never complain about having
things pinned or glued to them and can hold a pose forever.
I believe a doll
sculpture should portray a specific personality at a specific moment in
time. My dolls are always doing something, have opinions, are aware. This
often results in difficult positions and challenges in scale.
I don't mind, I've always
been a sucker for miniatures. |
Statistics
BFA -
University of Kansas
MFA -
University of Oklahoma
Home -
Spring, Texas, with two rescued cats and one husband who rescued me. |
