See Below; Linda's Dollie Storage Blog

After Midsummer and Anne Rice Auction

Even though I can't attend or buy anything, I am eagerly awaiting the commemorative catalog of the auction by Theriault's this July 18th that contains dolls from the Anne Rice collection and from the "collection" of Victor Hugo's granddaughter. I suppose if there is such a thing as an English major's doll auction, this is it! Rice's dolls have been included in so many of her books that I feel as if they are family and part of my album.

Other news: Dr. E's is now on Facebook, and we are picking up Twitter followers.

Lydia, the dream china head arrived. Even my husband was impressed. Her face is a creamy pink luster finish, and the vertical curls are fantastic. Her maker did everything right, down to the flat period boots. I can't wait to set up a web and real exhibit of all the china heads in Dr. E's. They have always been the quintessential antique doll for me.

Now that it is truly summer, many of us will be on the yardsale, rummage sale, garage sale trek. Just last week, I wasn't looking, and I found Boot Camp Barbie, very unique, a lovely 2' hand carved pre-Columbian figure, three bronze models of famous Parisian buildings on a marble base, and assorted tiny items for shadowboxes. I left other things, including a very nice sword with a bone handle. Too dangerous to have around my eleven year old, and difficult to store at this point. But, My Point [no pun intended!] is that I've always had a good eye. For those who are interested in these adventures, read Evelyn Chisman's Small Dolls and Other Collectibles. Though she wrote the book some thirty years ago, Chisman's idea and advice is still sound. She talks about the possibility of using her hobby to create a little income, though I confess, I don't sell my finds. I donate them to my silent auction gift baskets, and look for my friends' collections. Yet, she is right, that at any given sale, there are dolls, doll related items, craft items, small porcelain items, records, ephemera, books, and other collectibles that could be turne into cash on eBay, Etsy, Yahoo auctions, Amazon, etc. They could be incorporated into items sold at craft stores, or consigned for a little extra cash. I see lots of Barbie items, and Strawberry Shortcake memorabilia. These could be added to a retrospect of the different dolls that have been available. Even clothes and shoes have doll logos and character logos like the afore mentioned dolls, and also G.I. Joe, He-man and She-ra, Bugs Bunny, Precious Moments, Flintstones, etc.

Sales like this are also great places for holiday items and vintage Christmas ornaments. I found a whole stash of the Hallmark little houses in a handmade basket for $1.00 two years ago. These are great collectibles to pair with dolls, or terrific office gifts. They will be unique and appreciated. There is also a market for these items online, so again, you can make some spare change.

Hope all is well and remains so. Till next time, Happy Dolling.

Facebook

Dr. E's is now on Facebook. Wish us luck!

Midsummer Night's Eve

"if these shadows have offended, think but this, and all is mended . . . "

Such wonderful words, that have inspired such art. Ilove Midsummer, and remember many happy trips out west with my mom and dad,where we looked at fossil shops, and reconstructed forts. I loved Wyoming with its Jackalopes and Little America, and the mainstay of my Native American doll and silver jewelry collection came from those trips. There was a store we visited called The Boardwalk in Wyoming every year. The dolls there were real works of art, and I also used to find old comp dolls and old store stock, including tiny ethnic bisque babies from Germany and occuped Japan. We were nervous to get there on time; the elderly owner used to let us in, but the younger workers closed at five on the dot. Sometimes, we couldn't make it. We loved the rock tumbling places, and there was a great little craftstore loaded with old store stock one year near Billings that had all kinds of folk dolls. My first peanut doll, a cowby mounted on a tiny peace of driftwood was from there.

We visited the inn at The Grand Canyon, The Petrfied Forest, Old Spanish Town in Albuquerque, Old London Bridge in Lake Havasu, and the memories are as vivid as anything I see on a daily basis. One year we went to Colorado Springs and Yellow Stone, and we stayed in a cabin. A bear came right up my mom's window and looked her in the eye. Dad said it was professional courtesy. Very funny, sort of our totem of the cave bear moment. The dolls and souvenirs from these trips form the heart of the museum collection. I can't wait to display them all with their stories.

Birthdays and other small tragedies

Ah, another birthday, and always near Father's Day. My dad no longer allows holidays of any kind, and I recieved an envelope with "Happy Whatever" written on it and a Snoopy sticker. Oh well. My husband took me galavanting around our local university town, where we hit the most amazing thrift shops in the world. I found wonderful metal dolls, and a Medieval cookie doll made from an old ginberbread mold.It is very similar to the baptismal dolls of clay my late friend Mary Hillier portrayed in Dolls and Doll Makers. There were wonderful foreign costume dolls that came home with us, and a German mechanical cyclist for our eleven year old. My husband who is great about these things picked out some very old bisque dolls for me, icnluding a very sweet black bisque boy in miniature wearing overalls. I have also done well eBay and etsy. One metal head girl arrived with her own wardrobe of homespun and cotton petticoats. Her shoes are homemade knitted slippers with soles. All are put away safely, and we managed to clean today and make the house look liveable. I am trying to post a picture of the Lyhdia style vintage china head I just won. When I was little, I lusted after those long banana curls that spilled vertically down each side of the doll's face. It is the third birhtday without my mother, and it is very hard to take. When I look for the dolls, or browse for them, I can hear her whisper, "better get that one, too!" I took her passion flowers and lilies today, in honor of the flowers we used to plant.

One gallery in the museum will be the dolls she dressed and knitted for. Till later, to all,Happy Dolling!

Welcome!

Welcome to Uneek Musings! He most beautiful historical dolls, and in miniature,no less, that I have ever found are on this site. I am inspired to create miniature historical venues for them and am tempted to focus on tiny dolls forever!

Tomorrow is my birthday, and a landmark one at that, but it is hardly going by, not even with a bubble and squeak. I have been finiding metal dolls on ebay and etsy that are very good and also interesting. It has taken me about ten years, but I think I'm getting the hang of if! Dr. E's is also picking up some Twitter followers and considering facebook!

We have had rain and more rain, and terrible, windy storms where the streets flood, then recede. After the disasters re floods of the last two years, I am very thankful nothing has happened. It is not fun being in the middle of the remodeling mess, but it is better than the alternative.

Happy Midsummer, especially to those who love and collect fairy dolls! Remember Cindy McClure? Till later.

Metal Heads

Typcial Monday; it's pouring rain, and I was sniped on these heads for $1.00 on eBay! Lovely metal heads, which look like they are flapper heads from the twenties, possibly meant for boudoir dolls. Well, it happnes, but my motto is there is always another doll. Are there any more like these out there?

Shirley Jackson and Clothespin Dolls

I just finished Private Demons, The Life of Shirley Jackson. This was a poignan and thoughtful study of an intense and gifted writer's life. She had a lot in common with me, or I with her. When she was little, she and a friend became hooked on making clothespin dolls, especially of historical people. They made over 450, and Shirley's mother, a fastidious Debutante/Mrs. Cleaver-type, put an end to their production. Each girl could only keep a shoebox full of her favorites. Myh mother wouldn't have dared to issue that kind of an ultimatum! She, and I, were more likely to track down where the dolls had been donatedand buy them all! Like me, Jackson had family ties in California, and she was drawn to Anne Boleyn, the Salem Witch Trials,and Christmas. She and her husband were bibliophiles, with a library estimated at over 100,000 books, and collections of all kinds of things. I listed her in my doll book bibliography. I wonder if Anne Rice read her often; the Blackwoods of Blackwood Farm could be named after one of Jackson's characters. Such a brilliant, brilliant woman was Shirley Jackson, and such a short, short life.

Today was bad for asthma and allergies, two other Jackson [and Syliva Plath] maladies I have. In fact, every time I have a bad allergy attack or bout with sinusitis, I call it Sylvia Plath's Disease. Still, I got up very early to revisit a box of Nancy Anns and composition dolls I saw at an upscale rummage sale. I braved rain, and road construction, and found the box! In it, the dolls needed some help, but were overall original and pristine. Also, there was an early composition Alexander foll with them in original clothes. I als found wonderful foreign dolls, many Polish, a Cissy type fashion doll, 21" or so, with jointed knees, a 50s HP Halloween witdch, a handmade foll from Okinawa, some holiday items, some jewelry. I hit a couple other church sales that I had not visited for over five years, and found 70s Barbies with Barbie shoes and handmade outfits, and near mint CPK 80s dolls, as well as more miniatures, a carved witch standng on the moon, a vintage bellows camera for my husband, some books for my students, an unusual Holiday pin, and some fossil rocks for my garden.

Another fun thing for doll colelctors are the sample wallpaper books companies made in the 60s to 70s with toys and dolls printed on the paper. What a fun record of the popular toys of the time!

I always pick up vintage ornaments at these sales. Another love of my mother's. Well, if Mrs. Johnson can have one million ornamnets, I can have one million dolls! To all,Happy Dolling!

Huret Metal Head

Once the beloved possession of Dorothy Dixon, and written up by Marshall Martin and Maureen Popp, who has this beauty now? Dr. E's is interested! She would like to talk, and would like to use a photo for her book on metal heads? Any takers?

paper dolls

I am writing from my new pink net book, a birthday present! Never mind which birthday. I have been thinking a lot about paper dolls lately, all types of them. I confess sitting during many a boring event and doodling entire families of them in ball point, then coloring them and cutting them out to populate doll houses and shadow boxes. I've always loved making them by cutting out magazine pictures and making collages, too.

I read in Helen and Teacher that Annie Sullivan used to cut pictures out of Godeys to make paper dolls, and that she and her little brother made homemade flour paste and glued them to the walls of the morgue where she and her little brother played when they were incarcerated in the Tewksbury Almshouse. Children will play in any situation, if only to divert and comfort themselves.

My other paper dolls came from books, or craft kits. Dozens were from magazines. I loved Betsy McCall, and the earlier Dolly Dingles and Lettie Lanes. My first antique examples came from flea markets, and a few from antique stores. I have some very large examples,and one that was a Shackman reproduction of a doll representing Ellen Terry. She well-loved, and came from the gift shop of the Museum of the City of New York. Mom dressed her in green hued tissue paper.

I made dolls out of Kleenex, raffia and tissue that resembled cornhusk dolls, and often dressed dolls in tissue paper. I have one home made antique Mom found with gorgeous layered tissue paper dresses, and 3D tissue and crepe paper dolls. I love to collect these, and had a trauma in kindergarten when my teacher made me toss one when we were cleaning. Since then, I have a need to save every doll I can, no matter what!

When we got Apple IIGS at school, I made paper dolls and used cross stitch patterns in the old fat bits function. I soon found Swedish and Japanese 3D examples, and even have an old bisque doll dressed in crepe paper.

Paper dolls inspire me, as they did Ruth Handler when she created Barbie. I spent many happy hours in Holiday Inns and Best Westerns with my folks travelling the West when I was growing up, and drawing historical paper dolls, most of Anne Boelyn and Marie Antoinette, on motel note pads. They still exist in my albums.

I made a paper Greek Temple of Mt.Olympus in 10th grade, and populated it with my paper doll versions of the Gods. In sixth grade, I did small paper finger puppets to illustrate plays we wrote in literature. I have made them into pins, and posters, and have done a whole book with paper doll and doll collage illustrations.

The greatest thing about them is that you can have a collection of thousands and make them an album paperhouse or a box where they can all live. Sylvia Plath and Laura Ingalls loved them. The Japanese and other cultures have religious rituals involving them. The French have their pantins. I love them all. Happy Dolling.

Souvenirs?

We wandered through a local Pioneer Days celebration this past Memorial Day Weekend. The town was actually called Walnut Grove, and had General Store, ongoing "bank robbery," Apothecary, Black Smith Shop, etc. There was an ice cream parlor, and lots of handmade crafts, candies, and soaps. Many people were selling jewelry and souvenirs relevant to the time period or to the Old West. Not many folks were buying. [Of course, I did. this, though, is now besides the point!].I noticed this non-buying attitude before; recently, I chalked it up to the economy. Sometimes, I thought maybe the places were just too expensive. The old fifty cent souvenir stands of my youth are long gone, and the souvenirs themselves are now expensive collectors items.

But, when I think on it, no matter where I go, fewer and fewer people are holding shopping bags emblazoned with the name of a tourist attraction or destination point. Lots of people take photos with digital cameras, but even my friends who frequent Europe regularly come back with hundreds of shots for their digital albums and frames, most temporary to be replaced by the next batch. Few even buy or send postcards. Hardly anyone keeps a handful of foreign money or stamps, either for collectors in the family or for themselves. These last items were hot show and tell topics when I was in school. Even a lowly centavo was a treasured find, and often the beginning of a life-long passion for numismatics.

Even in expensive venues like Disney Land, I saw people with Mouse ears,fancy hats, Disney shopping bags, trinkets, lots of stuffed animals, and T-Shirt collections were famous when I was an undergraduate. My mom had a great collecton of decals from National Parks and other attactions dating from the fifties. These, along with her classic postcards, are immortalized in family albums and files. William Randolph Hearst got started with postcards of fine art, and postcards are still sold everwhere in great number. Why is no one buying them?

Then, there are the foreign dolls and tourist dolls. I love them, and they with my antiques are the focus of the museum collection. Yet, little girls don't have these travel dolls anymore as part of their childhood. There are no more storybook dolls, of any kind. Those who collect for investment are not fond of travel or tourist dolls at all. I sometimes have a field day at Goodwill or The Salvation Army. So, what is the problem?

Travelers have brought home souveniers as mementos and trophies of their travels for centuries, if not milennia. They are part of the reason world trade was born. My parents and grandparents had fantastic collections of souvenirs, and snapshots for that matter, from all over the globe. Have we become so cybertechnic, so obsessed with "simplifying" and outing hoarders that we've lost interest in everthing else?

I honestly don't know, and would invite comments and opinions from all sides!

Have a great day. Here are some favorite links of mine relating to this topic, to dolls, and to collecting:

The Shelter for Misfit Dolls. http://littledeadgirl0.tripod.com/creepydolls/index.html


American Junk
http://www.carterjunk.com/


Yokohama Doll Museum
http://www.welcome.city.yokohama.jp/eng/doll/

Anne Rice to sell Doll Collection

It is the fourth anniversary today of the civil ceremony that made us husband and wife. There were wedding dolls, including the Bride of Frankenstein's Monster, decorating the house. It was an auspicious day for dolls, cats, and humans alike. I read today on the About.com newsletter that Anne Rice was selling her doll collection at auction next month. I am fortunate enough to own one of the dolls she sold from the collection formerly at St. Elizabeth's several year's ago. Ms. Rice is one of my inspirations for wanting a museum for my dolls in the first place. She has done a lot to incorporate dolls into her writing and into the realm of literature in general, and she holds an honored place in my Bibliography. I would have loved to tour St. Elizabeth's in its heyday. She has the spirit of the true collector and when interviewed about her collection she stated that she did not collect dolls for profit, but because of the chord they struck for her. She collected what she liked and what was significant to her. She managed to put together a world class collection that became famous in itself.

I clipped every article I could about her dolls, and at one point, an editor promised me I could write one about them, then gave the story elsewhere. C'est la guerre, but I've enjoyed the research very much.

Ms. Rice stated that one reason she was selling the dolls is that she no longer had room for them in her new home, and that they were all over the house. I am humble enough to say that I felt ashamed at that point, since mine are not merely all over one house, but in every nook and cranny!

If this be madness, then it is a gentle madness, and one with a method. I suppose it is bittersweet when one reaches that junction; I am not there, yet, though I have thought of handing all of them over to The House on the Rock, one of my all-time favorite places. Nothing personal, but I'd like to give the producers of Hoarders a shot at the H.O.T.R, just for the fun of it.

On other fronts, I have finished my Articles of Incorporation, and the Bibliography is virtually ready for print. As part of our own personal stimulus plan, I have given up opportunities this year to attend expensive shows and conventions to care for the dolls I have and to write and publish.

I think my dream job would be to write full time about dolls, collecting, collectors, their history, and museums, in all genres!

Welcome to our new Twitter follower, and to all who read and follow this and my other blog, I bid you good night.