You have just come through a major transition. A relationship or job has ended and now you are starting off anew. Or you have just suffered a traumatic loss or a sudden illness. It’s difficult to figure out which side is up. Your life is busy, and it is taking all your energy to stay on top of the demands of this huge transition. You’re feeling overwhelmed.
 
​You’ve been addressing this overwhelm through traditional therapy or alternative healers. Or you’ve been staying very busy as a way to distract yourself from the disorientation you may be feeling. Sometimes you may even have tried to escape it all by doing things like binge watching Netflix or comfort eating. What is it that makes this newness so hard?
 
The healing techniques and strategies have been helpful, yet it seems like there must be something more than all this talking and rehashing of the past. It isn’t helping you to recognize this new self that you are after all this change but you can’t and don’t want to go back to who you were before this change happened.  

What's on offer here? My mission is to work with women at mid to late life transition whose roles and identities no longer fit and urgently want to connect to their true selves. One of the best ways to experience the magic of dolls is to make one yourself and I offer courses here where you can do that. Another way is to purchase healing dolls and you can see some of those on my gallery page and in the gallery exhibit on view in the video below. My hope is to offer here a channel for beginning to find your true self through the modality of healing dolls. 

On-line Offers:

Befriending Our Shadow: E-Course

Dates: 

Sign up begins-August 27, 2021
Early bird deadline-Sept 20, 2021                  
Sign up deadline-October 1, 2021                                 
Course starts-October 5, 2021                                       
Course ends-December 4, 2021
(no sessions for Thanksgiving week)                                        
 
Click here to find out more and to sign up. 

"I really wanted to explore my own current state of mind and I had a feeling that the class might encourage the deep dive I needed. These simple expectations were met and the more hidden expectations emerged and were met as well. The classes followed a path that was like a stairway down towards an internal place where the psyche and the soul met somehow…”
Barbara Sobol, participant Befriending Our Shadow, Fall 2020
 
"Carl Jung said 'The shadow is where the gold is.' The process of working on a flip doll in a community of doll-makers under the tutelage of Erika Cleveland was a wonderful way of accessing shadow parts of my personality, those parts of myself I have trouble acknowledging and seeing clearly…”
Joanne Delaplaine, participant Befriending Our Shadow Fall 2020
 
Find out more or sign up here for wait list: Befriending Our Shadow e-course  ​
​  A doll-making e-course about befriending our shadow, using tenderness and compassion to connect with all parts of ourselves. Flip dolls are two sided dolls connected at the waist. These two sided dolls have the capacity to capture divergent views of reality, dark vs light, joy vs sorrow, love vs alienation. In this course you will have the chance, through exploring and befriending your shadow, to discover hidden strengths within. And at the end of the course, your doll will represent and unite both shadow and light. You do not need to know how to sew beforehand. This class is open to those at all levels of sewing ability.  Read this about sewing. 


Octopus Woman/Ms. Peacekeeper two sides of shadow flip doll by Joanne Delaplaine
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Mini E-Book Introduction to Flip Dolls:

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​Brief Introduction to Flip Dolls: including Basic Patterns and Instructions for making two Soft Sculpture Flip Dolls:

Flip dolls are two sided dolls, usually with a head and torso on each of two sides, and connected at the waist. They are two dolls in one! Usually there is a skirt covering one side of the doll, so that there is always one visible doll and one unseen doll, below the surface of the skirt. This mysterious, hidden side of the doll lends itself to many different storytelling options, especially stories exploring dualities (opposites or themes that have two sides.) 
The flip doll lends itself to all sorts of personal storytelling, because of its two sides. This mini-book is the first in a planned series of mini-books and other offerings about flip dolls. This first one is more general but my plan is to write more specifically about types of flip dolls and give you the opportunity to learn about and make them. I have been obsessed with them for years and am excited to see what you might make with your doll. Please share what you make with me at my email address erikacleve@transformativehealingdolls.com. 
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Testimonials and Appreciations for Transformative Healing dolls:

Washington Post article, February 15, 2019, Mark Jenkins, "Erika Cleveland's Healing Dolls are Playful in their Duality"
"There’s as much grim fairy tale as sunny new-age whimsy stitched into Erika Cleveland’s fabric figurines. Some of the most memorable creations in the D.C. artist’s “There, There: Healing Dolls as Solace in an Off Kilter World” are “flip dolls,” whose identities depend on which end is up. Hanging like trapeze performers at WAS Gallery, the funky mixed-media beings can twirl from joy to loss, sun to moon or literature to pop culture.."

Here's what some previous participants said about the Ancestors/ Grandmothers flip doll workshop April 2019.  
​"...rather enchanted by the slowness of it, how much time I actually spent on my doll...gave me some deep revelation.  I was exposed to more techniques and possibilities than expected."

"..surprised by the warmth in the group and how quickly the time passed..."

" ...almost changed my mind and wanted to cancel because I couldn't imagine actually creating a flip doll. The surprise was that I created one!"