One doll at a time

Sometimes I get through hard days one doll at a time. Before I nearly cut my hands to pieces on an antique glass lawn ornament today, I had out a vintage comp baby to begin restoration. I am going to put her perfect compo head back on; I use adhesive tape for this, for dolls and crafts, it's my "duck tape." I have a beauitful antique baby dress for her. She is a 1940s Ideal type, with no crazing. Only her owner is craxed. :) Last week, I put together "Mrs. Plantaganet" of my orginal dollhouse family,inspired by te papers I'm writing on Rumer Godden. I also fixed a tiny, 100 yar old Japanese Ningo, ready for a wispy silk mini kimono. I dressed some of my forlorn Barbies, and my 13 year old son bought me an outfit for a Ken, late birtday present. That was a sweet gesture. I am constantly arranging and rearranging, and am expecting some more "forlorn" projects from my friend, M. I have a vintage French body and a head and shoulder plate for it, and I repaired a tiny German all bisque baby with tie-wrap wire. She lies in the arms of hand painted figurine. They were made for each other.

At a local estate sale of a former, prominent gallery owner our families knew, I found some great books that were doll related. One is an anthology of Japanese Plays which include the "doll plays" for Bunraku puppets. The other is a catalog of the Foundation for the artist Maillol, founded by his student and model, Mme. Dina Vierny. When she was around 89, Mme. Vierny sold her fantastic doll collection, which included the automaton Zula the Snakecharmer, to fund the museum. I have the article, and will place it with the book. The catalog is wonderful, and has paintings of Dina working as a model for Maillol and his contemporaries. There are also paintings with dolls in them.

I also found a book of Lautrec drawings; Dina Vierny had met him. Here is one of Chocolat in the Lautrec book, and Chocolat was one inspiration for The Golliwog, at least in Debussey's "The Golliwog's Cakewalk." Perhaps August will be my month; who knows? Meanwile, I keep plodding along, and am looking for publishers to finalize the Metal Doll Book and A Cultural History of Dolls. Happy Dolling, and thanks for helping us approach 20,000 readers just on this blog!