Believe it or not, I'm afraid of dolls. My grandmother inherited many of my childhood dolls (especially the posed, displayable kind) when they gave me nightmares and heebie-jeebies. Matters got worse when my grandmother began porcelain and ceramic doll making. The room I stayed in on weekend visits was a shrine to her creations and inheritances, and I felt like a little menagerie of plastic and glass eyes watched me and plotted against me.

In high school, I took a sewing class (I have to admit, I was wholely inspired by Molly Ringwald's character, Andie, in Pretty In Pink--the fact that she could take junkie fabric and old clothes and turn them into something new--although, looking back, blatantly hideous--was a thing of empowerment). In that sewing class (and subsequent others), I found Ms. Rothe: a wonderful teacher who saw something in me and encouraged me to continue into advanced sewing classes. She took the goth girl (me) under her wing, and she took me to FIDM on her own time to give me a glimpse at what she thought I could do in fashion design (I was always the one doing the jewel-toned velvet and lace ensembles for myself and my boyfriend. And there was always something to add beyond the pattern.) As I neared the end of high school, though, I decided to get official with a love that I'd always had--art. I entered college as an art major. But I have a problem--I call it "line dyslexia" (though that's not any kind of term for it): I reverse lines as I draw, and it takes me an excruciating amount of time to see the proper placement. I soon changed my major to English (but not until after I had declared economics for an entire week). I earned my BA in English in 1998 and began the MA program in the same, earning awards for expository essays and creative writing along the way. Still, I didn't want to teach English (or anything else), for crying out loud! Yet, besides working at a music store for a brief stint, being a proof reader for a local publishing house, and writing online reviews, every job I've ever had has been in education (from aide, to longterm sub, to coordinating a literacy center for K-12 children at a So. Cal University). All that was a paycheck--I knew I never belonged there, though I played it off well. I missed creating--whether in writing or art. I was so bogged down in paper and routine, I felt like a crucial limb was dying. Then I walked into a now-long-gone dollmakers' store.

I picked up a cloth doll pattern back in 1998. Why a doll? I'll never know, but I was drawn to it, and with my love of creating art and background in sewing, I found I could do it, and it felt good and proud. I started tweaking patterns and creating my own. And people liked the results! But at the top of this very webpage, you told us you are afraid of dolls! you are probably thinking. Ah yes, I am. However...

Hokey as it may sound to some, I am a firm believer that when creating a piece of art (or anything that evolves from the soul to and through the hands), the energy and emotion that the creator puts into it is the enegry it takes on. I never work on my girls when I'm angry or sick. I've done it once before, and the results were appalling. I know that what I am putting into my dolls is a love of doing it and a curiosity and interest in how they will turn out, and there's nothing scary in that, so I suppose I give myself a little therapy with each doll I make. If you subscribe to my kind of belief in the creation of art, you will understand. If you do not, you can still take away from it the knowledge that what you purchase from me is made with love and respect--it is not mass-produced or poorly handled in any way.

So, rounding back to that first statement about who I am. I am afraid of most dolls to this day--some qualities we have are just too interesting to give up. But I can tolerate them more. Something that making these dolls has done for me--besides give me a wonderful hobby--is give me a nice subsidizing income for my family (because I now get to be a doll-making, PTO volunteering, Stay-At-Home-Mom); it has also given me a very tender connection to my grandmother who put me in the room with those dolls...and I now understand the love and pride that went into creating each of the dolls in that room. She "gets" me in a way that others, for the most part, don't--and vice versa. We can sit and look at Doll Crafter magazine together, and I can tell her why I think some of dolls are creepy looking, and she can tell me about techniques she learned in an article, and we can commisserate about the decline of appreciation for the art of dollmaking. Such tender things I associate with my dolls: my daughter, my creative freedom, and a deeper relationship with my grandmother...is there any wonder why I love making them? As Martha would say, "It's a good thing."

--RavenCrow

Soon after I first began making dolls, as a stress-reliever, my best faerie came into being: my daughter. I attribute her to them, and them--in turn--to her. Because of this connection, each doll is special to me and carries a spark of inspiration from my daughter; they are truly a labor of love. I never know what a doll will look like until it is complete--I let the materials talk to me and come together on their own. Wings are drawn by hand (no template), cut, and burned to their unique shapes. Each face is also drawn by hand; therefore, no two will ever look alike. Hair is created from yarn, brushed, styled, and glittered to faerie-perfection.

I have trouble letting go of each faerie--I hope you will love them as I do.

Yeah, I have a few when it comes to making my dolls. Just a glimpse into the idiosyncrasies that go into the creations I make for my buyers:

I use the same pencil to trace out my faeries each time--the same pencil I've used from the start (what I'll do when it is no longer able to be sharpened, I don't know)--the Brooks College pencil that my sewing teacher, Mrs. Rothe--mentioned above--gave me in my senior year of high school when we were trying to find the right fashion design school for me.

~*~

Faerie hair starts out being wound around the same book each time: William Faulkner's The Unvanquished. Why The Unvanquished? Well, this one is kind of deep, I suppose. I guess it's a sort of subliminal nod to a dear college professor I had and adored. A friend. Before taking her class on Faulkner I had read "A Rose For Emily" and (attempted) As I Lay Dying; I LOATHED his work. I was convinced that the only reason his work was considered "Classic American Literature" was because no one could understand what he wrote, and the scholars who deemed him "classic" only did so to appear that they were brilliant enough to understand him. Kellie made me not only understand him, she made him one of my favorite authors. The Unvanquished was her favorite Faulkner novel, and she had a particular appreciation for one of the characters in it--a strong female character, Cousin Drusilla. In the book, there is are many references to Verbena, which Drusilla wore in her hair in a pivotal chapter: "because she said verbena was the only scent you could smell above the smell of horses and courage and so it was the only one worth wearing" (pg 220).

When I got pregnant with my daughter, there was a long rough patch that forced me to quit my MA program--I almost lost my daughter, and I almost died too. I felt so completely sorry for myself being taken out of the education that had been my world for so long. One night, I unloaded a pity party onto Kellie, and she reminded me how long I'd wanted my baby, how trivial--in the grand scheme of things--the program was if it would cost me what was building to be a great future family. She called the stuff outside my pregnancy "white noise." A single, childless college professor whose whole purpose was to get people into programs to learn talked me out of it for that little bit of time. She could never know how her words that night helped me, stuck with me--to this day. I lost Kellie the following year to cancer. Before she ever met my daughter. I spoke at her memorial, and I told the entire audience of students, former students, professors, her family, basically what I have written here--about how she turned me from a staunch Faulkner hater into a fan, about verbena, and about her advice about "White Noise," this time deciding that the White Noise was the grief about losing Kellie--her impact and friendship was what was strongest and "the only one worth wearing." I inserted a sprig of Verbena into one of the flower arrangements closest to her picture. She will always be the personification of the strength that verbena symbolizes. She will always be Unvanquished. And since my daughter was the impetus of my dolls, it seems only fitting that Kellie, who helped me appreciate the process of my pregnancy and "Watching the Wheels" (my favorite song through my pregnancy) should have a part in each creation.

~*~

Each doll or pillow is stuffed with the same stuffing tool that I designed when I made my first doll. I have other tools that are basically the same, but this is THE one.

~*~ Up until this past Christmas, I sewed my dolls on the sewing machine I'd had since my first sewing class with Ms. Rothe. It was a temperamental machine that often threw me into fits of swearing I'd never make another doll, but I couldn't imagine using another machine. It died in 2006, and I was forced to buy a new monster. So far, my superstition on the angle of needing that machine has been wrong--thankfully.

There are many reasons that crows and ravens resonate with me. Their intelligence, their comedic behavior (you know they'd be a bit sarcastic as humans, too!).

One of the most beautiful (to me) reasons that I hold crows special is found in an old Lenape tribe legend of how Crow got to be black, and how his voice became coarse. Before humans appeared on Earth, Crow was the most beautiful, rainbow colored bird, with the most beautiful voice on Earth. It came to be that snow began blanketing Earth, and he, above all others, was called to save the other Animals. Bravely, Crow flew up to Great Spirit, asking for the cessation of the snow. Rainbow Crow was given a stick of fire to carry back to Earth to melt the snow. As Crow flew down, the ash and smoke singed his throat and forever changed his voice. His rainbow colors were blackened with the soot, and once he melted the snow, he retreated to a tree to weep for what he once was.

Great Spirit heard Crow, and said this: