Conclusion to With Love from Tin Lizzie Redux

Here we go again. I lost the first post! I am re-blogging the last chapter of With Love from Tin Lizzie. It is a tribute to my friend Jim, but also a teaser, I hope, and the first step to turning this blog into a web museum. I will be modifying and adding to the book, including new photos of some great new, but antique, additions, and a chapter on dolls made from found metal objects, as discussed in the latest Art Doll Quarterly by Somerset Studios.

Finds for this weekend were a German dollhouse baby with cradle and bunting and a Renwal green and yellow porch swing with baby, all in a dollar bag with other vintage miniatures from Concord, Marx, Renwal, and Shackman. Be sure to read my other blog on Greening tips, for a discussion Reusable Usalbes, a store that recycles in a big, clean, tasteful way. I was able to take away from there gorgeous vintage Christmas ornaments and treetop angels, some very old, and great shells and demitasse cups for my Barbara Pym class.

I also found at a quilt show, sewn parts for rag dolls, sew that my badly distressed Raggedy Ann can now be completed and saved. She was one of the great flood of 2008/2009 disasters. I threw many things, but no dolls, and only one or two books. All else has been scrubbed, aired, baked when needed, fumigated, packed, and repacked. I've been a regular factory of restoration, an in another tribute, I think I became the Shelter for Misfit Dolls, 2! Happy antiquing! The Dr.

Conclusion: What Next?

I love history! Dolls are history. They have had an impact on life throughout time, from emotional youngsters
getting one as a gift to impacting whole economies . . .

Jim and Joan Radke, JnJ Dolls

In an allusion to the legendary statue of Memnon and the theory that Ancient Egyptian statues had souls, Rilke has written that dolls were fed and made alive through children's imagination like the "Ka" of the Egyptians is fed on imaginary food.
Some doll makers, however, were not content with inanimate dolls that only lived through the power of a child's imagination. They strove to make dolls so lifelike that they could actually imitate human movement and sound. Formanek-Brunell and Kuznets would have us believe that there were serious gender differences among doll makers, and that male toy makers saw the dolls they made as extensions of both themselves and the machines that they created. Thus, even female dolls had male anatomy and characteristics, and like their creators, they were made of hard, efficient substances. These tiny human impostors were not meant so much for love, as durability.
In any case, the doll, as cultural artifact, is our "double," the other which both repels and attracts us. It perplexes us that something so "dead," can also be so alive, and that something the modern world has relegated to the toy box can have such a rich and complicated history.
Dolls will continue to be made as long as there are human beings to conceive of new designs for them. They will continue to reign predominantly in the children's realm, though individual adults and museums will still collect them as tangible artifacts of human history, miniature representations of humanity for their respective ages.
Metal dolls, while still not prized in most important collections, may have the richest history of all. From the golden idols of the Inca and Aztecs, to the toy soldiers of lead and silver and the Minerva and Juno heads of the last century, metal dolls could form a fascinating collection in themselves. It is hoped that this book will inspire others to take up the "iron" gauntlet and add to the dialog that I hope this research has created. Until then, to all who are interested in doll history and doll collecting, Happy "Dolling," with love from Tin Lizzie.
November 1999, The Eve of the
Millennium











Illustrations for Chapter 8
112. Facing page. A little girl of the early 1960s holding her doll. The doll is mechanical; when wound, it plays music. The face and hands are vinyl, while the body is stuffed, pink plush. (Author's collection).





















113. Facing page and following: The outline that follows is a brief history of dolls and doll collecting, including a list of famous collectors. Doll collectors are from all walks of life, and dolls have influenced artists, musicians, philosophers, and physicians.






















114. This photo illustrates the variety of dolls available today to collectors. As the Radkes of JnJ dolls have pointed out, collectors have different philosophies about collecting. Mr. Radke, who "caught the collecting bug" from his wife and her mother, prefers antiques, including metal heads, china heads, bisque dolls, and celluloid dolls. He buys with an eye to the doll's history and future value potential. His wife, Joan, likes to collect all types of dolls, regardless of their future value potential. Left to Right: Top Row: Bisque artist doll with hand painted face from an Austrian company, China head said to have survived the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, small sheet metal doll dressed in the style of the 1830s with muslin dress and ball of yarn, vinyl fashion doll by National Institute of American Doll Artists member Suzanne Gibson, 1970s cloth over wire doll from Taiwan. Second Row: Bisque doll by Armand Marseilles of Germany, wig and sleeping eyes; on her back is written a memorial to the little girl who once owned her but died in childhood, small Mexican wax doll, Italian hard plastic mulatto girl, bisque or Parian man with molded collar. Third Row: A modern vinyl representation of Princess Diana, composition man from Saudi Arabia, china headed British soldier from Hong Kong with Asian features, composition Wendy by Madame Alexander, ball-jointed bisque doll by Kestner of Germany, small bisque by Armand Marseilles. First Row: Blown glass Christmas ornament of a snow man, Small bisque head with ball-jointed body dressed in white satin, "nodding" Indian doll of clay and wire, tiny bisque doll house doll, clay miniature figurine of St. Teresa of Avila, Victorian dressed Valentine's Lady by Gorham, tiny clay doll from India, black bottle doll from Peru, American Kachina doll, clay Day of the Dead figures from Mexico, bisque german doll dressed as bride from Bethlehem of the early 20th century, felt over wire warrior chief from South Africa. The tiny bear and witch are clay Halloween figures, while the blue and brown figure is a lathe-turned Kachina of the American Southwest.
(Author's Collection).

Spooky Dolls

Once again, we have studied Halloween, El Dia de Muertos, All Souls and All Saints Day, The Samhain, and Thanksgiving. I always bring a few calaveras, and skeleton dolls, and of course, my "spooky things," the broom, locally made that is the official broom of the Salem Witches, the Living Dead Dolls, also a game, sometimes Erzebet Bathory and her bathtub shadow box, all those good things. I have vampires of all types, from Elvira, to the little holiday candles. My newest candle is a soy candle witch, black as ebony, and well-detailed. She is locally made by a friend of a friend. I bring the Frankenstein's monsters, and lanterns, and Jack o' lanterns, my little man in the Electric chair, the toy guillotine, handmade with a a real blade, the skeleton that walks the gallows and says funny things, the pumpkin that plays the Italian funeral march, all in good fun. We have cornhusk dolls, and corn cob dolls, and corn dollies and wheat dolls, a few of broom straw, and these must surely harken to grim Celtic and Druidic rituals described by Anne Rice and by many, many Celtic scholars.

We always watch The Halloween Tree in these classes, and sometimes I make sugar skulls for them to eat. I actually have a sugar pig, preserved these 23 years, a friend brought from El Dia de Muertos in Mexico. This is a solemn, dark time, but a perfect time to tricksters, for history, for being grateful for the harvest, for full moons, and cool days and nights.

It is now that I feel my childhood, when all the traditions come back, when I feel my mother near. We loved going to the fall dolls shows; my first Schoenhut came from one, and my puppy, Killer, went to a doll show road trip the second day we had him. He was so small, he rode in a shoebox and was nearly blown away at what later became his favorite rest stop on other trips. My mother started me on decorating the windows with Halloween cutouts, and we made many. There is a witch out of construction paper I still have from third grade, and an Anne Boleyn paper doll holding a tray out in front of her, with her head. I made her in the 4th grade. Had I been a better artist, I might have been in serious trouble at school! As it was, I got in trouble in second grade for making a kite with a doll on it that represented a Geisha. The teacher was scandalized. I'm not sure now, as I wasn't then, what she was thinking.

Now is when I want to curl up on the porch, scary book, doll magazine, or needlepoint in hand, hot coffee, or sipping chocolate, at hand, to get lost in my dreams and my memories.

The papers for our Articles of Incorporation are in the hands of my lawyer. Oh, for a builidng! But, the web museum will be next.

New additions to the museum, not too many, but a few choice dolls from the 40s and 50s, some nice penny dolls, a vintage Mme. Alexander, and some other ancient Hungarian and Italian dolls, the latter of carved wood.

More from the metal doll book, soon, and from The History of Dolls.

Happy dolling, and make an apple doll to celebrate the harvest.

Gurley Halloween Candles

See the Link for a great site and web museum of these wonderful candles.

http://www.lostwackys.com/Gurley-Candles/

Welcome

Welcome to Fretta and All That's Vintage; what wonderful blogs and sites. I will follow you, soon, as soon as I catch up with work.