Dr. E's Doll Museum Blog: Dolls in Valentine Colors El Dia de San Valentin

Dr. E's Doll Museum Blog: Dolls in Valentine Colors: Pink and red, white lace, pale lavenders, purple passion, the colors of Valentine's day abound this time of year.  The Story of St. Vale...

Dolls in Valentine Colors

Pink and red, white lace, pale lavenders, purple passion, the colors of Valentine's day abound this time of year.  The Story of St. Valentine the Martyr is one of filial love, of teachers and students, devotion, and loyalty.  I'm not sure how erotic love even became part of the legend.  My best memories of the day are of the school valentine box, and my family. We had presents and a Valentine tree,  lots of candy and heart shaped boxes I still like to collect, the best had dolls on them. My dad bought us flowers and gold jewelry; one year, I went to a father daughter dance for girl scouts with him.  I miss those days terribly.   Then, one year, I broke up with my fiancé on Valentine's Day, another year, I broke my foot.  My dear friend Mary H. died on that day; she loved dolls and Valentines and wrote on them.  The last thing she wrote was an article on antique Valentines that she shared with me.  It was twenty years ago; hard to believe for me.

So, I don't like the day much any more, but I love the colors, the memories, the old Valentines.  Here are some images for you to enjoy:

American Doll and Toy Museum: The War Against Plastic; What will Happen to our D...

American Doll and Toy Museum: The War Against Plastic; What will Happen to our D...: Modern Porcelains had their run. Recently, Starbuck's announced it would be fazing out plastic straws.  In fact, a lot of ...

Mr. Monk, The Goldberg's Spinoff, and Doll Sightings

Doll Sightings

 

The dollies do seem to pop up everywhere! This week, they popped up sort of as Tamagotchi toys in the Goldberg Spinoff, and in Monk on H and I TV. 

Public Domain; Mr. Monk  and the Voodoo Curse

 

Mr.. Monk solved a case where a doll was used as part of murder weapon; it has a garage remote stuffed in its body, and when the remote went off, the garage door lifted and became a gallows, hanging a girl tied to the other end. The episode is Season 4, Episode 24, Mr. Monk and the Astronauthttps://www.tvguide.com/tvshows/monk/episode-14-season-4/mr-monk-and-the-astronaut/100305/.  An astronaut did it; very sad.  The doll was an Asian vinyl baby with cloth body.  It was called Japanese in the show, but it was more Chinese.  There was also a collection of doll featured; they belonged to the victim. I saw a cloth faced Kabuki doll, and Greek and European dolls of papier mache from the 30s-50s, and at least one Petit Colin Celluloid doll from France.  The cast called them “ugly dolls.”  Hardly.  “Monk” Dates from the 90s to early 00s. There is also an episode involving voodoo doll, Season 8, Episode 7.  Mr. Monk and the Voodoo Curse.

 

The Goldberg’s 1990-something Spinoff as its called, was formerly called “Schooled.” Coach Miller was caught up in the Tamagotchi craze and had 69 of the little doll surrogates he was caring for.  Unfortunately, No. 43 died.  It was very sad.  My Tamagotchi is MIP, never activated.

Public Domain

 

In spite of it all, there is still interest in dolls.  I’m still hooked, of course.  Look for my column in Antique Trader.  My first column was in the January 16^th issue.  My next will be in March.

Bulgarian Doll.  My collection.

It's Winter, get out those Frozen Charlottes!!

Beating the Winter Blahs with Dolls

 

We all know the feeling; it is near the end of winter; March is a crocus blossom away.  Everyone has cabin fever, and everyone has had it with snow, ice, snowplows, and sniffles.  So, how do we make it to the homestretch without going snow-mad?  Dolls are the answer!  Below are my tips for beating the winter blahs with dolls:

1. Joint Pinterest and start a Board.  There are terrific boards on dolls and doll-related items.  Mine are Doll Collection, Women’s Apparel and Holidays.
2. Surf eBay for collector’s guides.  When you watch an item, there is a new feature that reads “add to collection” where you can save pictures and information for items you like, similar to Pinterest, above.
3. Join Facebook; there are terrific pages for dolls and doll stores.  Ask to join the group, and if it is not closed, and administrator who invites people in will include you. 
4. Explore other social media like Twitter, Tumblr, and Flickr  or doll related photos and images. You can also set up albums of your own doll photos on Google and on the social media discussed above.
5. Visit The Library of Congress online at loc.gov and explore resources for dolls, including thousands of photos and other images.  You can also explore titles for doll books, and then visit your own library to “read more about it.”  As a fledgling doll maker, I loved the library for its copy machine which allowed me to make paper dolls and to add to my research files.  Also, check out any library cafes [we have to eat] and book sales.
6. Dust and rearrange your doll displays.  Facebook and Pinterest are great places to get ideas, as is our own About.com Doll Collecting site.
7. Check out the new dolls available at the big box stores, department stores, and doll shops.  Look online if you do not live near shopping centers,  Again, libraries are a good place to use computers, as are your Smartphones, iPods, Tablets, and other hand held devices.
8. Look for clearances sales, and think outside the doll house.  Craft stores, hobby shops, fabric s stores, and gift shops are great sources for dolls, books, related items, and supplies for doll making, doll clothes, repairs, and miniature projects.
9. Make a doll, visit places described in 8, or go to Etsy for inspiration.  You can favorite certain stores and sellers and get newsletters.  If nothing else, make a snowman; technically, they are dolls.
10. Watch movies about dolls and toys: Toy Story, Child of Glass, Dolls, Dollie Dearest, Shirleymania
    Barbie Nation, Barbie Films, Raggedy Ann Films, Documentaries, etc.
11. Check out films on YouTube about dolls; good searches are Doll Collection, Doll Museum, Dolls History, names of dolls like Monster High, Barbie Collection, Names of stores and specific museums.
12. Find a doll blog, like American Doll & Toy Museum or Dr. E’s Doll Museum Blog, and post something nice.

1. Take a walk
2. Start a doll club
3. Get on the Speakers’ Bureau to talk about dolls, do a doll talk, hold a class, and take a class, e.g., how to photograph dolls. Look at Tom Kelley’s shots of Marilyn and dolls, and Tom Kelley, Jr.’s work, too.

 

Thank you Virtual Doll Convention!

I'm taking this chance to thank everyone at Virtual Doll Convention. We all learned and enjoyed so much! Truly, doll folk are not singleminded at all, and we have enjoyed many fashion, culinary, antique, and doll programs and videos. Our experts were wonderful! From plush to bears, to Bru, Alexander, and Maggie Bessie, we explored whole other worlds involving dolls. Who could forget that stunning presentation on Raggedy Ann and Andy, too! I remember my third grade teacher reading the stories to us, and wishing that cookies did grow on trees and clouds were cotton candy. We learned to sew, enjoyed printable goodies, and shared Kewpie hugs! What a great collection that was! Till next year; I can hardly wait!!


You can still register at www.virtualdollcollection.com to see these great programs and relive the whole wonderful week, including the terrific salesroom!!

The Murder Room and More

An interesting point of where literature and criminology intersect:  From The Murder Room:  “But it was Vidocq’s remarkable story of redemption and his belief in the redemption of others that touched Fleischer most deeply. The chief cop of Paris was a great friend of the poor and said he would never arrest a man for stealing bread to feed his family.   Vidocq was Hugo’s model for Javert, the relentless detective in Les Miserables, as well as for Valjean, the excon who reforms and seeks redemption for  his deeds” (Capuzzo 135).  Vidocq was a criminal who became a detective, and who formed an agency even before Pinkerton.  He is considered a father of modern criminology.  This well researched book by Michael Capuzzo tells the story of The Vidocq Society, named in his honor, and of three remarkable criminologists who lead the pack of those who would solve the most unsolvable of crimes.

Frank Bender is one of the experts and members featured. He was a forensic artist who built busts out of mere remnants of bones found of victims.  He also created busts of suspects.  His work reminded me of sculpting dolls in many ways, albeit macabre ways.  Also, dolls make appearances here and there.

In another strange interlude involving dolls on Instagram, two Greek dolls appeared on a "haunted" doll store Instagram page.  The dolls were the Amalia, or woman wearing the Greek National costume named for the first modern Queen of Greece, Amalia, who also designed the outfit.  The Male doll was the Evzon, Chollia, or Greek soldier who still guard the royal palace in Athens.

The dolls have silk painted faces over a mask, and a wire armature with plastic limbs.  Two of these dolls started my own collection; my mother gave them to me when I was three.  They had belonged to my grandparents.

One commentator said the dolls had "evil," negative vibes, perhaps containing the auras of sexual predators!  What rubbish!!  People need to stop this nonsense!  These were vintage dolls representing another culture, which happened to be mind.  I identified the dolls, and also commented that my people, Greeks, are not predators, especially not the kind describe.  People are just sick and wrong sometimes.

American Doll and Toy Museum: Hellenic Muses a la Poupee

American Doll and Toy Museum: Hellenic Muses a la Poupee: Greek dolls have been influenced by many cultures, mixing with, and creating doll simultaneously with, Greek artists. A doll shaped ...

King Tut and Dolls; Memories of an Exhibit

King Tut

 

Ancient Egypt is often credited with first using the doll as a toy for children.  Having said that, many doll historians note that the Ushabti, sometimes pronounced “shawbti” or “shoabti”, are doll figures with ritual significance. 

 

Pics Mitch Milani and Ellen Tsagaris

Many collectors are familiar with small faience figures, about an inch or two in height, that look like tiny mummies.  They are designed with hieroglyphs, including scarabs at times. These were sometimes pressed in molds and contained in boxes.  Sadigh Gallery has examples of these in its catalogs.

 

More elaborate Ushabti are covered with gold, decorated with stones, are made of glazed ceramic, and have more detailed facial features. 

 

Within the last few years, I was privileged to view the travelling Treasures of King Tut exhibit, which was something on my “bucket list” I’ve waited to see since I was 16 years old.  I’ve missed it twice in Chicago, so this was all or nothing.  When my alma mater invited my family and me to a special showing with lecture and Ancient Egyptian-inspired hor d’oeuvres, I jumped at the opportunity.

 

Note:  This exhibit does not contain the treasures from antiquity.  The Director of the Putnam Museum where the exhibit was held informed us that since the Arab Spring, the original treasures cannot leave Egypt.  Instead, a group of carefully skilled artisans made reproductions, over 1000 of them, that can’t be distinguished from the originals.  They are breathtaking, and one of my posts will feature a gallery of the photos we took.

 

The Putnam does have a large collection of authentic artifacts that originated with the collection of Dr. B. J. Palmer, father of modern Chiropractic.  One of these is an unwrapped mummy of a woman; she has been there since the first time I saw her at age 6!

 

The Ushabti on display for Tut were around 18 inches high, and breathtaking in their detail.  One featured the infant King Tut holding a silver rattle, which looks very much like expensive children’s rattles throughout history.  Egyptologists believe this was a toy, and not a religious item.  I find that interesting, since most early objects that rattled were believed to have religious significance throughout the Ancient World by anthropologists and archaeologists.

 

The portrait mannikin of Tut was also on exhibit.  This figure was used to model Tut’s clothing.  It may have also been a tailor’s dummy.  I have seen it photographed in many of my doll books.

 

Amid the early board games and throwing sticks Tut played with, was a reproduction of an alabaster vessel surrounded by 4 realistic ethnic portraits of other peoples who lived during Tut’s era.  These were not two-dimensional hieroglyphic sculptures, but realistic, with ethnic features and skin tones including African and Asian.  This is significant to me since we sometimes have the idea Ancient Egyptian artists could only create one way stylistically.

 

The magnificent death mask of Tut, all gold and Lapis Lazuli was represented; the Peggy Nisbet portrait doll of Tut is very accurate; I like it because its head is metal.

 

The elaborate coffins, his chariot, the gorgeous throne, all are there.  Also, there was information about Queen Nefertiti, who has also inspired dolls.  She was once considered the most beautiful woman in the world.  New information indicates her tomb may be near Tut’s.  Also, Nefertiti was related to Tut, perhaps as his mother in law.  We do know she was the wife of the discredited king, Ahkenaten.

 

The Tut exhibit travels; look for it in your town.  In California, the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum has an amazing collection of artifacts.  The Milwaukee Public Museum and Art Institute of Chicago also have wonderful collections.  If you life near Cairo, then you have the best “seat in the house” for this type of art.  The British Museum has a wonderful Egyptian collection, too.  For more on Howard Carter who found Tut’s tomb, try works by James Patterson and Time Life Books’ “Ancient Egypt.”  Biographies of Cleopatra, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Nefertiti, and Anne Rice’s “The Mummy Ramses the Damned” are also of interest. National Geographic’s video on Tut’s treasures is quite good, and Pauline Gedge’s “The Lady of the Reeds” is well researched along with “Wine of the Dreamers”, a time travel romance based on Ancient Egypt.

 

                                                              

 

Ten Iconoclastic Rules for Collecting Dolls; Thinking outside the Doll Box

Ten Iconoclastic Rules for Collecting Dolls; Thinking outside the Doll Box

 

Let me begin by paraphrasing George Orwell, author if 1984 and other works, from his essay “Politics and the English Language.”  He outlines his ten rules for good writing, no doubt formed from his own school of hard knocks, learned during his days of writing communist propaganda.  Basically, he said in about the tenth rule that writers should break the other 9 before they wrote anything “barbarous.”

Australian Swagman, gift of J. Smith

 

I’m a big fan of Orwell and literary freedom; I don’t like collector fascists either, or collector totalitarians.  To each her own, or in the immortal words of Sly Stone, “different strokes for different folks.”

 

So, here are my ten unorthodox rules for collecting dolls.

 

1. Buy what you like.  This is the most sacred rule for any collector to follow.  Buy what you like, and opportunity and investment will come.  As you buy what you like, your taste may change or not.  You will learn about all kinds of dolls and related items, you will study, read, and improve your critical thinking skills and even your communication skills as you explore what you love.
2. Read freely of other collectors’ advice; take that advice sparingly.  Don’t let a doll snob, or even a well meaning collector, talk you out of a doll you love.  If you can afford it, you like it, have plans for it, are inspired by it, made happy by it, go for it.   Your collection is a kind of autobiography; it says things about you, and those things are good.
3. To paraphrase Mary Randolph Carter, author of The American Junk Series of books, magazine contributor, Internet entrepreneur, and executive at Ralph Lauren, never ask where am I going to put it?
4. Condition is not everything; if you have a chance to be gifted, or to buy,  a fabulous doll that is damaged but very reasonably priced, don’t turn it down.  What if that bargain baby that needs TLC is a Bru, or a Marque?  Stranger things have happened.
5. Don’t buy just for investment.  If you want to speculate on investments, become a day trader, buy bitcoin, trade in stocks, etc.   Like art, dolls and collectibles should be lived with first.  A good collection ages like fine wine.
6. More is more.  I’m sorry; it just is.  Collectors don’t like the “H” word.    Simplifying and downsizing what you like to please others merely causes you more stress.  Collecting what you like in any number you are comfortable with brings joy. 
7. All Dolls are Collectible.  CF Genevieve Angione’s wonderful book of that title.
8. Donate dolls to charity, or contribute to Toys for Tots.  Spread the word that dolls are good, and that they teach children many valuable skills.  Dolls are probably the oldest toy, and perhaps the oldest human cultural artifact. 
9. Stay away from haunted object and creepy doll crap.  Don’t let these naysayers talk you out of your dolls.  I love monster and Halloween dolls all in good fun; I feel happy and safe when I’m surrounded by my collection, writing about it and caring for it.
10. As Mr. Orwell wrote, break any of these rules before you do something barbarous, like throw away a doll.  Never, ever do that!! The Doll is always Greater than the Sum of its dolly Parts.

Syward 2019; A Very Special Post by David Levy

Skyward

January 2019

          For those of us who were alive back then, where were you on Christmas Eve, in the year 1968?   I remember exactly where I was.  Sitting in front of my family’s television, we were watching a surreal scene on TV.  There was a camera peering through a triangular-shaped window on a spacecraft called Apollo 8, out of which was a view of mountains, plains, and craters.  And at the bottom of the screen were the words, “Live from the Moon”.  I have a feeling that most of you, if you were living then, were watching too. The Apollo 8 Christmas eve broadcast was the most watched television program in the world up to that time.  The announcer on our station, Walter Cronkite, was not saying much.  Occasionally he would update us as to what part of the Moon the spacecraft was looking at, but most of the time, the view on the screen said it all.  And it was magical.

The year 1968 was a terrible year for the most part.  In April, Martin Luther King was murdered outside his hotel room in Memphis, and just two months later in Los Angeles, Senator Robert Kennedy was assassinated.  And two months after that, the Democratic National Convention disintegrated into a riot on the streets of Chicago, with “The whole world watching.” That November, Richard Nixon won a close national election.  Then came Christmas Eve. 

Earthrise, Apollo 8, David Levy owner

 

Apollo 8 was not intended to head for the Moon.  The Saturn 5 rocket, as tall as a 36-floor building, had never been flown with humans aboard.  The NASA picture that accompanies this article, in fact, shows Wernher Von Braun, the man who designed the Saturn 5, utterly dwarfed by five engines so large that one could set up housekeeping in each of them.

(The other picture is astronaut Bill Anders' epochal “Earthrise”.) The Saturn 5’s unmanned test flights had been beset b8y several minor problems, and the Lunar Module, which was intended to land two astronauts on the Moon and return them to the command vehicle, was not yet ready for flight testing. But in August, 1968,  George Low, Manager of the Apollo Spacecraft Program office, came up with an ingenious idea: NASA could fly a manned Saturn 5 with only the Command module.  If the launch was successful, it could then proceed to orbit the Moon.

After some debate and a lot of tense moments, Apollo 8 launched on the winter solstice, December 21, 1968.  About two hours later, a simple message was radioed:  “Apollo 8:  You are go for TLI.”  After the trans-lunar injection, Apollo 8, with Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders, was on its way to a Christmas eve rendezvous with the Moon, there was nothing left to do but travel and wait.

For me, by far the most memorable part was the astronauts’ Christmas eve message:

“We are now approaching lunar sunrise, and for all the people back on Earth, the crew of Apollo 8 has a message that we would like to send to you.”  Then each astronaut read from the book of Genesis.  Our family was spellbound as we listended to these words.  But it was the ending that really turned the year 1968 from one of tragedy to one of promise and hope:

“And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas—and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth.”

von Braun and Saturn 5, owner David Levy