About

ON MAKING DOLLS

I have been making, studying, and collecting dolls and puppets for over twenty years. The word doll immediately calls to mind a kind of saccharine childhood toy; but dolls can also evoke feelings of strangeness, uncanniness, even dread (death dolls or the work of Hans Bellmer being prime examples). Sometimes, turning a serious subject into an “unserious” plaything can reveal uncomfortable truths, which is probably why some of the Dadaists liked to make dolls.

Someone once told me that my dolls scared her. I’ll take that as a compliment (though it was not meant as one). In this vein, some of my recent exploration involves transforming abandoned dolls by creating not-so-pretty masks of their faces. I think this speaks to the role of innocence and beauty in our society, the doll’s invitation to projection, and the soul’s response.

Finally, I create dolls because even dolls not made for children are a nod to childhood—to that rare and tragic (because it is so brief) time when, to quote Thales, the world is alive, has soul in it, and is full of gods.