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. 

Tour of my 2019 Solo Exhibit, There, There: Healing Dolls as Solace in an Off Kilter World

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!"
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​To see my paintings and additional dolls, click below on the link for my other website:

erikaclevelandart.com
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