Making dolls. Showing dolls. And teaching about dolls. What could be more fun?

 My dolls and I have been busy over the past month. In October we went to the Smith Center for Healing and the Arts and did a workshop with some wonderful women about making a guardian doll. One participant created a guardian doll named "Mary," who has the qualities of old age and youth at the same time. While the doll is a wise older woman, she is also pregnant with a child. She is soft and comforting and will provide the participant with love and support. You can learn more about this Doll-making from the Inside Out workshop on my FB page and on the Transformative Healing Dolls website.

In November we went to NYC, to the Expressive Therapies Summit, to attend a workshop led by Lani Gerity, Martha Haessler and Susan Anand about the work of Edith Kramer, one of the founders of the field of art therapy. To see more photos from this workshop, see my FB page. My dolls and I also co-led a workshop: Felt-making as a Therapeutic Medium: An Introduction with art therapist and wet felter, Sarah Pitkin. We had an impressively skilled and enthusiastic group of art therapists in attendance. Together we learned about wet and needle felting and then created a needle felted doll, wet felted rocks and experimented with wet felting flat surfaces. The photos from this workshop are top (me talking about needle felting), and below (Sarah demonstrating the technique for wet felting a rock.) For more about this workshop, see my website. 

This week my dolls and I helped hang a new show in the pop up Associates Gallery(Studio 12 on the first floor) at the Torpedo Factory. Together with three other artists (see photo top row, right) Susan Sherwin-painter, Brandon Newton-painter andFierce Sonia-painter and collage artist, we will be showing our work for two weeks from November 17 through November 30th. There will be a reception this Friday from 3-5 pm if you are in the area.

Lastly, my dolls and I are also in an extended sublease at the Torpedo Factory, sharing a studio with 3-D artist Ann Citron (studio 329 on the third floor. ) You can visit us there on Thursdays and Fridays from now until the end of the year and possibly into next year as well. My dolls can also be seen at the Potomac Fiber Arts Gallery at the Torpedo Factory (studio 18 on the first floor.) And more about this on my FB page.  An image of my "Scottish fairy houses" can be seen in studio 329  with my guardian, created in the Smith Center "Doll making from the Inside Out" workshop.

All in all, it's been a very busy two months. I anticipate that the next month or so will be more introspective, with time in the studio and time spent planning the next workshops to come. There will definitely be another felting workshop at the Smith Center in the Spring. Other workshops including a possible on-line felting workshop is in the works. 



 

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