​WAS gallery
There, There: Healing Dolls as Solace in an Off Kilter World

Erika Cleveland

January 19 - March 2, 2019

Opening Reception on Saturday, January 26, 6.30-8.30pm
 
Artist Erika Cleveland uses the term “doll” in her work because she believes there is something unique about the word doll- humble, simple and yet powerful. Dolls have been around since the beginnings of humankind. They hold considerable power for us; they are our companions and they reflect us back to ourselves. Dolls can heal us physically, spiritually and emotionally.
 
In this solo show at WAS gallery, Cleveland explores various themes through mythology, folk tales, religion, spirituality and her personal dream symbolism. A central theme is the power within the female body, including the way this power is deeply rooted in nature. Darker themes such as loss, sadness and fear alternate with the playfulness of fauns, forest creatures and elves. The dolls express the dualities of life in the way they shape-shift and transform, for example through the medium of the folk art form called flip dolls. Like votives, amulets or talismen throughout history, dolls provide a focal point for healing and meditation.For more information on the artist or the artwork, please contact Joumana Moukarim: wasgallery@gmail.com/ 202.361.5223

WAS gallery
5110 Ridgefield Road, Suite 208, Bethesda, MD 20816
Hours: Saturdays 2-6pm and by appointment

This exhibit was an unexpected gift, as the curator, Joumana Moukarim approached me at the Jackson Art Center Open Studios last month to ask if I would do a solo show at her gallery in January. Moukarim creates a wonderful, enriching environment for the art she exhibits and hosts a stimulating and intimate discussion while the exhibit is in place. I will post more about the discussion and possible workshop that will accompany this show, as details get finalized. 

​I'll be preparing for this show over the next weeks as well as preparing for the workshops at the Halcyon Center in Georgetown-see below. Lots going on! ​

Above are photos of a major studio reorganization I am doing after the "attic remediation" during which time I had to work from home. It actually looks better now than in these above photos but there is more to do. It is wonderful to have a place for everything in my studio and I look forward to lots of productive creating in this wonderful space in 2019! 

Anna im Eichelmütze, Kinder des Waldes: Ancestors
 
In my last newsletter, I started to write about a new ancestor doll. This is part of a series of dolls that started with Bloodlines-Five Generations, (see above image) which was about my father’s maternal line. That doll emerged after I had interviewed my father over the period of about nine months and then gathered his stories together into a small book, Looking Backward: Interviews with JHC,  to be shared with my family. This new doll, Anna im Eichelmütze, Kinder des Waldes: Ancestors is about my mother’s maternal line. The German translates as Anna in an Acorn Hat and Children of the Forest.
 
I am currently interviewing my mother about her stories of growing up in wartime Germany. I plan to put her stories together into a book as well. It’s difficult at times to write my mother’s stories because of the hardships she and her family endured and also because of the horrible history of the Nazis in Germany. Even though I wasn’t alive then, I find that I have feelings of guilt about what was perpetrated by the Nazi party against the Jewish people. My mother was only five years old and wasn’t aware of what was happening. I’ve been doing a lot of reading about it, mostly memoirs of others who lived through that time. I just finished A Long Silence: Memories of a German Refugee Child, 1941-58 about a German woman, Sabine de Werth Neu, who suffered a difficult childhood of poverty and abuse during WWII in Germany. Unlike my mother, she and her family lived in an area of Germany occupied by Russia. After the war and she and her sisters were all brutally raped by Russian soldiers. My mother was lucky to have had a very different experience to be in an American occupied part of Germany. While there were some strange incidents, such as American soldiers pointing their cannon at my mother and her brother when they came back to their house to pick up pea flour, for the most part their interactions with the American soldiers were not as scary.

In the doll, Anna Im Eichelmütze, (see photos above,) I am trying to process my reactions to the stories my mother is telling me. The doll is also a tribute to the generations of strong women in my mother’s and my family line. I have less information about my mother’s family line than I had about my father when I was researching his story. In my mother’s family I only know of my mother’s mother, my grandmother, Annemarie Nestele, and my great grandmother, Anna Hochstätter Balz. My mother tells me about another generation, my great great grandmother, the mother of Anna Hochstätter, but my mother doesn’t remember her name. In the Anna im Eichelmütze doll, this unnamed grandmother, my great great grandmother is the one whose felted head is on top of this doll. ​

​Themes in Anna Im Eichelmütze
 
I am trying to address many themes at once in this doll, including the hardships my mother and her family experienced during wartime Germany, contrasted with the resourceful ways that my mother and my grandmothers dealt with these hardships. 

That resourcefulness includes the ways my mother distracted herself during painful experiences such as hunger and the lack of other available resources. My mother and her siblings made up stories, based on the fairy tales that my grandmother told them. Having very limited toys of their own, they created toys out of what they could find. In my mother’s recollection, there were many times where she didn’t feel a sense of hardship or loss, instead feeling gratitude for what she was given. The acorn hat on Anna (my grandmother as a child)’s head alludes to some of the toys my mother and her siblings created. 
 
I used an image of the house that my mother grew up in and that was later taken away from her family by the occupying American troops as a theme in this doll. This house, which was once a Benedictine monastery from the 14th century, was a school for "wayward boys" with my grandfather as director. At times the house shows up alone as on the chest of the doll. At other times, the house is overlaid with images of wartime Germany, as on the doll’s sleeves.
​
​I also represented three generations of my mother’s family in two separate family groups. The matriarch, the unnamed  great great grandmother whose felted head tops the doll, holds in her belly two “books” or fairy tales, with images of my grandmother as a child on the front of the top book (Anna im Eichelmütze) and images of my mother and one of her sisters on the front of the bottom “book” (Kinder des Waldes.) Inside each of the books there is a hidden space. I made tiny dolls to represent the two family groups and put them inside this space. On the top is my grandmother as a teen with her family, and on the bottom, is my mother as a young girl with her family. My mother’s father disappeared in the war but my mother’s family didn’t hear of his death until the 1970’s. So in her family group, I showed my mother with her mother and siblings but without her father. Behind them on the back “wall,” there is a smaller family group with my grandfather included. 

​More about my mother’s story
In the photo of my mother and siblings with my grandfather, everyone looks happy. In the little dolls made from a later photo of the family group without my grandfather, everyone is wearing ragged clothes and there is a look of pain on all their faces. 
 
In this doll, I want to show the contradictions of my mother’s story. The pain and the joy both. She talks of having not enough food, of having lost their home, having no money. And yet they did the best with what they had. They were inventive and creative. There was still music in their lives, stories and making things. When I asked my mom about toys she said they had very little. She and her siblings, when they didn’t have to do chores or work, would go into the woods and find acorns and twigs and make their own tiny dolls. They would use walnut shells for tiny beds for their dolls. 

​More about “and then we had color”…
My mother and her siblings only had plain pencils to draw with. But then someone, she didn’t remember who, gave her two color pencils, yellow and red. And her brother, Wolf got blue and green. They were able to trade colors so as to have more. My mother talks about how excited they were to have colors to draw with and what a difference this made to them. To depict this story, I stitched a handkerchief of my mother and Uncle Wolf, with the stitched words of my mother’s story of getting the colored pencils. This handkerchief is in a side pocket of the doll. 
 
The doll is mostly beige and black, the sepia colors of old photos. But in the few details in those colors that my mother and her brother were so excited about, yellow and red, blue and green, reflect their tiny moments of joy. My mother and her siblings were also sustained by the stories that her mother read to her, Grimms Fairy tales and other stories. One of my favorites and my mother’s favorite as well was a story of children who lived in the forest, something like “Hanschen im Wald,” ( I don't remember the exact title)  where the children magically shrink down to the size of the tiny animals of the forest. We both loved the wonderful drawings of the children wearing hats that looked like blueberries or strawberries, acorns or mushrooms. So I added some of these fanciful hats to the photos of my mother and her siblings on this doll. 
 
My mother told of many other hardships that I didn't depict directly in this doll.  Some of these hardships were, having to glean bits of wheat from the fields after the farmers had already been through them, so that her mother could bring them to the baker to grind for wheat. Or collecting tiny beechnuts-a day-long process, so they could get a quart of beechnut oil to cook with. 

Process of making the doll
This doll came out of a process of experimentation (see images below.) I knew that it was going to be related to the ancestor doll that I made about my father’s family which had an internal space at the bottom containing a felted heart and which could be opened and closed. I had the idea of making this doll using cigar boxes as the internal spaces but didn’t know more than that. I tend to work intuitively and figure things out as I go along. There were various challenges along the way, such as how to attach the “books” so that they could open and close, how to enclose the cigar boxes, how to make the tiny dolls that fit into each box and how to make these tiny dolls stand on their own. I am thinking of making a video that shows each stage of this process but for now here are a few photos showing some of the steps along the way of creating this doll. 
​
Viewer Challenge? 
I am interested in challenging you as a viewer to maybe make an ancestor doll of your own. Stay tuned as I figure out how to set this up here. I will also be teaching a class on ancestor dolls in the form of flip dolls at Halcyon Center in Georgetown, next April. Dates are tentative (see below) but stay tuned here for updates. 
 
What is next?
Now I am thinking that there need to be more dolls in this series, so far I have two and one wall hanging. I am playing around with the idea of a nesting doll as ancestor doll. Stay tuned. 

​Upcoming events:
 
December 2, 1-5 pm Jackson Art Center Open Studios-
Somewhat last minute, since the building is undergoing some renovations and we weren't sure if we were going to be able to host open studio this year. This year, we will still feature holiday themed food and decorations. This is a rare chance to see what I am up to in my studio and also to buy some smaller dolls that I am offering for the holiday season. Here are some of the dolls that will be on offer at the Open Studios and then at the Adams Morgan Holiday Market, if there are any left. I do plan to make more. 

​December 8 10-5 pm Adams Morgan Day Holiday Market-
Again sharing booth with fellow JAC artist Amelia Shachoy. I just found out that she is leaving the JAC this month. This is another chance to see what I am working on and to buy some small dolls for the holiday. Or to splurge on a larger doll… I will probably have Anna Im Eichelmuetze at this event, but Bloodlines will be in another exhibition (see below.)
 
December 1- 22, 2018 Opening Reception Friday December 7 6-9 PM Frida Kahlo themed exhibit at Artists and Makers 
On display will be my Bloodlines-Five Generations doll ( see image at the top of this newsletter) about my father’s maternal line. There will be a holiday show at Artists and Makers on the day of the closing reception, December 22nd, but I won’t have dolls in this show.  

​
Spring 2019 Workshops
Save these dates-tentative-still to be confirmed
There will be three workshops in the spring at Halcyon House. Halcyon House is a new center, just moved into a space in Georgetown near me. They offer artist incubator programs, to support emerging artists, arts labs and dialogues on various topics of current interest. They have recently started to offer arts workshops as well and I am honored to be a part of this program. 

Here is the tentative plan of my workshops-again still to be confirmed. Stay tuned for updates. 
Saturday, Feb 9 10-3 PM, Needle felted guardian doll workshop
Saturday Mar 16 10-2 PM Sacred Feminine Wrap doll workshop
Saturday and Sunday, April 27 and 28 10-3 PM, Ancestors and Grandmothers flip doll workshop.
Please note: I am currently working on prototypes for this workshop. I will get images soon that are closer to what we will be making. 

Above image is Studio shot of Rhea III, Shedding Her Skin, a new version of a doll that was lost. 

Dailiness as a Path to Transformation:
I've always been interested in the power of dailiness, along with Transformation, capital "T." Lately I have been thinking more about the small steps it takes each day in order to effect those larger transformations in life. I'd like to share with you some of the practices that I use in my own life as a way of moving forward creatively. Sometimes it seems like it is the tiny daily steps, made consistently over time, that lead to true transformation. 

The doll in the photo above represents the process of transformation. She is shedding her old skin, leaving her vulnerable and naked. But at the same time she is discovering her inner strength, represented by the chakras on her body. I had made another version of this doll, (scroll down to Rhea: Shedding the Old.) which was lost during transportation from a museum exhibit. In this new version of the doll, I enjoyed seeing the evidence of what I have learned in the interim. Her shed skin seems more convincing for one, and overall she seems like a stronger work. Making this doll was a way of getting over the loss of the first one, and at the same time, it was a learning process to recreate her.  

One of my practices is to nourish myself with inspiring podcasts, readings and newsletters. Here are a few of them, in case you don't already know them. There is Rick Hanson and his weekly newsletter, Just One Thing. Each week he describes a practice which supports mental, physical and spiritual health. Recently he wrote a newsletter entitled, Water the Fruit Tree, which is a partial inspiration for this newsletter. He suggests that we can each do certain things on a regular basis which nourish us and make us feel happy, essentially watering our own inner fruit trees. In this way, we gain the strength and courage needed to take the small steps that lead to transformation. 

What follows is a partial list of what inspires me and what is a part of my daily practice. I don't promise to have put this in any particular order. I hope it will inspire you or remind you of your own daily practices. You willl of course have your own list, but maybe this will give you some new ideas.  I'd love to hear your thoughts. 

 

My own incomplete list of what "waters my fruit tree"
Part of what "waters my fruit tree" is daily routines. When I wake up I do a five minute energy routine that I learned from Donna Eden, with a few other steps thrown in, then I do at least a half hour of yoga on my mat. While I am at my studio, where I am most days, I often listen to audio books, using an app called Libby, which connects to your local library to easily download free audio (and Kindle) books. I also listen to podcasts and one of my favorites is Krista Tippet's On Being-more about that later.* I find listening to books and podcasts particularly useful when doing "boring" repetitve tasks in the studio that don't require a lot of thinking (yes, there are boring moments in being an artist too-see Elizabeth Gilbert interview -link below on her book, Big Magic and how everything worth doing, no matter how exciting, is still 90% boring and 10% thrilling and magical, just hang in there for the magic!) It is more distracting to listen to recordings when I am starting something new or planning things out in my studio but sometimes I get stuck listening and don't want to stop! I have to work on self discipline!

Some more things on my list:
Good News Network-a wonderful weekday post that offers a "morning jolt of good news," from around the world. Each day this newsletter collects three or four stories that tell of good deeds enacted by people from all walks of life, unusual inventions, often created out of inexpensive or recycled materials, and sometimes just funny happenings. This has been a wonderful antidote to the often very depressing headlines in the news lately. 

​Museum and gallery visits, "artist dates," (if you'll remember your Julia Cameron The Artist's Way!) I've decided I am going to go to galleries or museums at least once a month, since the other day when I spontaneously decided to go see some art at the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery, instead of going to the studio. It was a wonderful opportunity to take advantage of the many free museums within walking distance of where I live. It's a good long walk-which is another of my energizing things, daily walks. See images below. Some of the art I saw that day reminded me of the flip doll project I finished earlier this year, though what I saw at the museum were not flip dolls. They were from two exhibits, one at the National Portrait Gallery Unseen, In a New Light and the other at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Galleries for Folk and Self Taught Artists. 

Daily walks, around the neighborhood. This is a good time to reflect and mull over ideas. Lately this has been really fun because where I live, Georgetown, DC goes all out decorating for Halloween. This year, I made a needle felted witch for our door and carved a pumpkin with my husband. We have a dog, an Old English bulldog, and he gives me an excuse for daily or twice daily walks. (I alternate with my husband who usually does the morning walk.)

Learning, challenging my mind. I've been studying French with Duolingo, on day 447!! I was inspired to learn French because of my daughter's choice to go to college in Montreal, Canada where French is spoken. 

Music making-I play in an amateur quartet about once a month, viola. Mostly I only play when we meet. I don't really practice these days. I want to do more eventually. 

* I wanted to get back to the Krista Tippet On Being interviews. One I listened to recenty was with Elizabeth Gilbert on her recent book Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear. There is so much that is wonderful in this interview-I highly recommend listening to it. She demystifies creativity, saying it belongs to everyone, instead of just to artists or writers. To prove this, she asks us to think about the way in which children, all children, approach creativity naturally and without fear. Secondly, she asks us to think about our ancestors, both men and women, and how they created things "needlessly beautiful" in all the clothing, handiworks, household items, just because it felt good. This was a part of their daily lives-not something separate that you had to go to art school for. But I am starting to digress. This idea leads me to my next topic, a studio visit with the latest doll I am working on, a second ancestor doll based on my mother's stories. 

​Studio visit: Second Ancestor's doll in progress, this one based on my mother's stories
I have been, over the course of the past couple months, interviewing my mother, who was born in Germany and was a small child during WWII. If you will remember, I recently completed another doll about my father's ancestors and posted about that-you can see it at the bottom of that blog post. I'd like to write more about that doll soon. 

The doll I am working on is inspired by my mother and is also a tribute to the many strong women in my mother's family line. The story doesn't go back as far as it did for the doll  I made about my dad's ancestors. There I was able to go back about five generations. For my mom, I went back to her mother Annamarie Balz and her mother, Anna Hochstetter Balz. Beyond that, the next grandmother, my mother's great-grandmother, we don't have a name. But my mom remembers her as being very kind and had a couple photos of her. She is the inspiration for the head of this doll.

I started making the doll at the Textile Museum event that I wrote about in my last newsletter, which was a while ago! I have been building a form for a main doll body, scuulptural needle felting around two cigar boxes. Then I have been adding stitched and felted details, using photographs from my mother's relatives and of her when she was young.  In this doll, I am planning to contrast images from the fairy tales that her mother ( my grandmother, whom I called Oma) read to her to distract her and her four siblings from the hardships around them, with images of the war. I plan to write more about this in my next newsletter in November. I promise to write this next one sooner! 

​Save these dates

Here are some up-coming events. Stay tuned for more details. The Adams Morgan festival (which I wrote about in my last newsletter) was essentially rained out when we did it in September, so it is being offered again. 

December 2 Open Studios at the Jackson Art Center, 1-5 PM
December 8 rescheduled Adams Morgan Day all day
Spring 2019 Workshops, place and topic TBA

Here's (top row left and middle) another view of my mother's pin and a view of her wearing the pin. Next (top row right) is a pin entitled "I love Gully" that I made for my sister, Ingrid. She loves birds and this one is about a seagull that has been returning to the beach at Lake Ontario near our family summer house in Sackets Harbor. This bird has a backwards twisted leg and my sister has been feeding him for about five years now! Amazing that he keeps coming back!
Next (middle row left) is a dancing dragon pin inspired by a medieval image of a similar theme. This is for a friend, Chris, who loves dragons. Then you can see (middle row middle and right) a pin I made for my mother in law, Shirley, after wonderful family vacation on Mount Desert Island, Maine which she made possible with her husband Paul. I combined some of the experiences we had there, kyaking, whale watching (we didn't see whales but saw dolphins and porpoises) lobster dinners and the wonderful Mount Desert itself. It is called "Mount Desert Island Family Retreat, Summer 2018."
And in the bottom row are three images of progress on a pin I made for my daughter who is going off to McGill University in Montreal. She asked for Winnie the Pooh and a bee, so I put a small bee in an image of Pooh with Piglet. When I showed it to her first (middle image) she said " but what about the red jacket that he always wears?" I thought, "oh no! I already sewed it together, how will I do the jacket?" But I was able to do it.  I embroider these pins and then turn it inside out and sew the front to the back with quilt batting in between. I had already turned it rightside out and sewn it together. But I was able to still attach a tiny piece of red felt, making it into Pooh's red jacket, with black stitches. I think she's right. He looks better with a jacket. All of these pins use a very simple stitch, back-stitch.
Note: My sister, Ingrid is a fabric designer. She makes beautiful designs that then get turned into couch covers, wall hangings, bags and more. I have a few wonderful bags with her fabric designs and some pillows. 

My healing doll making mentor, Barb Kobe has a new book out, The Healing Doll Way: A Guided Process Creating Art Dolls for Self Discovery, Awareness and Transformation. It is available on Amazon and also on her website and is just amazing! She talks about the process of creating healing dolls, something that she teaches over a period of a year. She invites participants to make a  series of five dolls, (the guardian, scapegoat, lovingkindness doll, talisman and healer.) Each doll builds on the next to create a healing journey for the participant.
Barb's method is not to give patterns and tell her students what to do, but instead to create an safe environment that fosters creativity. She includes prompts for journaling, mind-mapping and other methods to inspire and challenge those who want to use the powerful medium of doll making as a means of personal growth. 
She features many of her own expressive and creative dolls in the book, and also dolls by artists who have participated in her workshops. Some of my dolls are in there too, mostly the ones I made as part of her healing doll class.  I highly recommend this book if you are interested in healing dolls or even just in the healing process. 

This summer I've been thinking about what I want to do with the Kalili project, but I haven't done a lot of work on it. I have decided, I think, that I do want to make the whole series in fiber to complement the twelve painted triptychs that I made earlier this year. But I still haven't figured out exactly how this will look. 
I have recently seen a couple examples of story-telling through fiber art that inspire me to go deeper with my own project. If you haven't seen them yet, you should check them out!
​The first is Sandra Sawatsky, from Calgary, Canada and her Black/Gold Tapestry project, featured in Selvege magazine. The artist decided she wanted to make a sixty-seven meter long tapestry that celebrates the history of oil or "black gold" and that encompasses the history of the world, starting with dinosaurs. This project took her nine years to complete. She was inspired by the Bayeux Tapestry, from the 11th Century, which depicts the Norman conquest of England.  Sawatsky uses three rows of images, with a central featured image and then two on-going scrolls of images at the top and bottom, similar to the Bayeux tapestry. I am enjoying reading her blog posts about the process of making her tapestry. 

​The other project that inspired me is a fiber artist collaboration  and curated, I guess you could say, by a writer Alexander McCall Smith. It is called the Great Tapestry of Scotland. McCall Smith put out a call and many volunteer tapestry artists responded, sending individual  scenes depicting various significant moments in the history of Scotland. McCall Smith was inspired by the Prestenpans Tapestry at the Dovecot Studios in Edinburgh. For the Great Tapestry of Scotland, he commissioned a writer to create a narrative to go along with the tapestry panels. I am fascinated with Scotland myself, though I have only been there twice. 
I hope to get back to my Kalili project by October and will keep you posted on the progress. 

Adams Morgan Day: Here's the poster for the September 9, 12-6 event that I will be doing with Amelia Shachoy. We will be sharing a table. She draws, paints and makes prints. I will be selling small items, such as my woebies in tins and some stitched pins such as the ones I showed above, along with some new small dolls. Please let me know if you have a particular theme you would like me to do for one of the stitched pins. They are more fun to do when they are personalized!
If you are in the area, I hope to see you there. I haven't been to this street festival before but I love street festivals and am looking foward to being a part of it!

Celebration of Textiles: Above is a poster for the Celebration of Textiles that I will be participating it along with Jill Newman on September 15th from 10-5 at the Textile Museum in D.C. This looks like a lot of fun too. Jill and I will be demo-ing needle felting. She makes wonderful fanciful creatures, jewelry and some abstract pieces, all infused with her "zazzy peacock" motifs and inspiration. There will also be dancing, opportunities to try out various fiber techniques, food, guided tours of the museum and more. 
I am going to show my latest piece inspired by Frida Kahlo and having to do with my father's ancestry, five generations of grandmothers, as well as some other recent pieces. I will be starting a new piece inspired by my mother's German ancestry. We will see how it goes because I have only just started the piece and usually at these demos it can be tough to get a lot done. Hopefully it will be interesting to see what I start from and the progress I make. 
Hope to see you there if you are in the area on that day. I know it's going to be hard to choose because there are always a ton of intriguing fall activities in the beginning of September. 

Below are studio views of my first ancestor doll, inspired by interviews with my father. I used photos of five generations of grandmothers, my father's mother on up for this doll. I will be showing this doll at the Celebration of Textiles and will be demonstrating the beginnings of a similarly inspired doll about my mother and the generations of mothers before her. 

Ancestor Doll: An ongoing project that I just finished, an ancestor doll, representing five generations of my family. ​I was inspired to make this doll at the one year anniversary of my father's death on June 1st. I recently looked through photos from the five generations of his family, focusing on the women. This doll represents the four generations of women who came before my dad. The felted doll represents the matriarch, Clarissa Myrick Webb.

Save these dates:
September 9, all day-I will be sharing a booth with Jackson Art Center artist Amelia Shachoyat an outdoor market in Adams Morgan. More details to follow. 
September 15, all day-Textile Museum Celebration of Fibers. I will be doing a felting demonstration together with fiber artist Jill Newman. Again more details to follow. 
End of November, beginning of December-exact date-TBA, JAC Fall Open Studios!
​

Learning new materials and techniques:
Over the last month, I have started a new journey which has meant learning about new techniques and new materials. These include how to make medieval style images of clothes, landscapes, animals and more. And learning how to paint with goache. So there has been a pretty steep learning curve for me. This is a project I have been wanting to do for a long time now but haven't been able to because of the two grant projects I was working on. 

I have been spending more concentrated time in my studio, and less interaction with the outside world-which has its pluses and minuses. I am so happy to be finally seeing this project come into reality. At the same time, I do miss spending time with people doing things such as the Flip Doll Project.

The Kalili Project
Many years ago, even before I learned to felt, I created a series of dolls and then wrote a novel about the story of these dolls, called Kalili's Journey. I had been wanting to illustrate this story for a long time but now, with this hiatus between big projects I have some open ended time to work on it.

I will share with you some of the first panels. Eventually there will be twelve. Each is a triptych with a central scene in the middle and two supporting scenes on either side. Then my next plan is to figure out a way to translate these panels into fiber, either stitched or felted or some kind of combination of the two. But first the twelve painted panels. 

Here are some images from what I have so far. I have also been posting on Instagram as part of the 100 day project #100dayproject on Instagram if you want to go look it up-not too late to join!) as a way to inspire myself. The idea is to post each day an image of a 100 day project that you are working on. This is going to take more than 100 days but it is a start. 

Before I even started making these panels, I spent a couple weeks painting directly from medieval images that I found on Pinterest, a great resource. Below are some examples of these first efforts. There are so many things I love about these medieval illuminated manuscripts. 

I love the use of gold, the idiosyncratic ways that people and animals are depicted, not to mention the very creative sense of perspective. This has all inspired me in my art for a long time. I was interested in looking at the way each image is framed and from looking at these images, I decided that each of the twelve triptychs of my story would have a frame that matches the theme of that part of the story. 

 Good news about the Jackson Art Center-we have a new lease!
I also want to share the good news about the Jackson Art Center where I have a studio and have been spending most of my time this year. I don't know if you remember that we have been trying to get our lease extended. Back last summer I went with several other JAC artists to testify on behalf of the center. Well, we have heard that we are getting a new lease for 20 years! It does involve a significant rent increase with annual increases but it is a lot less that we had originally feared. Up until recently I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to stay there but now it looks like I am going to be able to. 

Spring 2018 Open Studios
To celebrate this lease extension and also my new project, I invite you to our twice annual Open Studios at the Jackson Art Center. This year the Open Studios are Sunday, May 6th from 12-5. Hope to see you there! 

PS: The image on the post card above is a detail of an image by JAC artist and friend, Sherry Kasky. 

My first experiences of Lisa Neher
I've been at the Jackson Art Center for almost three years now. Two years ago I moved up to the second floor, from a basement space in the bottom of the turret, to studio 15A. Almost at once I became aware of,  Lisa Neher, across the hall in studio 18B, creating her large and exuberant paintings. Her presence was larger than life as was her involvement in the running of the Jackson Art Center. It was always wonderful to know that she was there across the hall from me. Here's Lisa's own experience of painting at the JAC: "Studio 18B is located in the second floor turret room of the old Jackson School. I am there every day during the week, and some weekends. When you're self-employed, you are never off duty. Good thing I love what I do."
Last December, Lisa passed away and in the beginning of January, her family held an informal gathering in memory of her. One of her cousins  arranged a series of images of Lisa's paintings into a slide presentation and various people, family and friends, spoke about their memories of her. And at the end, her husband Roger offered some of her paintings to those who had gathered in her memory. I chose the crow painting that you see above. 
Lisa and Crows
From talking to various family members and others that knew her, I learned that she had had a fascination with crows. She fed them whenever they came near her house in Falls Church, Virginia. And thus, the crows started to follow her when she went on walks beyond her property. They loved her and she clearly loved them and depicted them in several paintings. I was grateful to be able to have one of these paintings to have in my studio in memory of her. 
"Crow Spirit" doll
In gratitude for this gift and also in honor of Lisa's memory, I decided to make a crow spirit doll, inspired by the painting I had been given. I wanted it to be playful and also wanted it to suggest the spiritual connection that Lisa had with crows. I am giving this doll to Lisa's husband.
Sometimes in my work I use animals to represent qualities that I want to embody or that I want my dolls to represent. I looked up the symbolism of crows and found that they are rich in symbolic meaning. Crows are seen as intelligent, far seeing and intuitive. Crow totems have been used by shamanic healers as at the boundary between life and death and are sometimes seen as messagers from beyond. And they are also symbols of transformation. There is also something humourous about crows-they can be playful and appear in Native American stories as tricksters and practical jokers. 
In the doll that I made, I gave her wide wings/arms that can hang at her side or can be attached to the side of the head, as if upward about to launch into flight. The two crows stitched on her belly were inspired by the painting of crows that I was given. The red heart symbolizes Lisa's love of crows. The doll has two heads: a woman's head with a tiny mirror attached to her forehead, symbolizing her ability to see intuitively and into the future. The second crow head above the woman's head has a bright and playful expression. The spirals on her legs symbolize magic and universality. 
To see more of Lisa's work and read about her, check out her page at the Jackson Art Center.
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While I was working on the Revisioning the Flip Doll project over the past two years, I encountered something I hadn't seen before, the "inside out" flip doll. These were dolls that actually fit one inside the other, almost like nesting dolls, instead of being connected at the waist, separated by a skirt. One of the artists I interviewed for my project, Jihee Kang, made playful inside out flip dolls on the theme of "goldfish/sushi" or "womb." I also found a wonderful book, Flip Dolls and Other Toys that Zip, Stack, Hide, Grab & Go by Karen Wilson. 
I especially loved her Saint George and the Dragon inside out flip doll and  determined that once I was done with the grant project, I was going to make this doll and also try out some of the other ones. Above are the two versions of St. George and the Dragon that I made. It was really fun to do. I plan to also try her superhero inside out flip, but make one of my own design. I highly recommend the book if you like playful things that tweak your imagination. 

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I wanted also to share an article about the Flip Doll Project with quotes from interviews with some of the N. Street artists, see below. 
Right now I am talking to some of the artists about an on-going connection, where I provide them with materials to work with on their own and then meet with them once a month. I want also to explore ways of helping them to sell their dolls. This hasn't all started yet but is in the works. 

Please save the date for the next Open Studios at the Jackson Art Center. I already booked the musicians, Reginald Cyntje, who plays trombone and is accompanied by a bass player, Herman Burney. They were wonderful when they played for us last Spring. As always, there will be wonderful food and drink, children's activities and lots of art to view. 

​Above is a photo of me with two of the installation team. To my right is Julie Haifley, whose flip doll, Forever Kiki is also to her right, and to my left, Jill Newman. Jill created the exhibition post card and also has a flip doll in the show, see below. And next to her flip doll, Life's Journey, is Ruth Parks, an Artists and Makers artist who also responded to the flip doll challenge. Missing from this photo is Heidi Moyer, also a PFAG member, and who has been my sounding board throughout this project. Thanks to all for their amazing guidance and assistance.

It was a wonderful show. I am so pleased that three of the women from N. Street Village were able to attend, see photos below. One had to take three buses and one train because her other means of transportation fell through. What dedication! Many of the artists from the Flip Doll Challenge attended, as did many of the members of the Potomac Fiber Arts Guild, the organization which provided the grant which partially funded this project. 

The final component of this project is a talk at the Potomac Fiber Arts Guild, describing the entire scope of this two year project. The talk will take place at the St. James Episcopal Church, 11815 Seven Locks Rd, Potomac, MD 20854, at 10:30 am on Saturday, February 10th. See the PFAG website for more information. 

The show will be up until February 21st. Directions and hours are on the Artists and Makers website. 

One of the most frequently asked questions I get when people come into the TAG gallery at the Torpedo Factory or at the Jackson Art Center Open Studios is how do I get my ideas?
 
The Conant Flip Doll Project:
I thought I would take a stab at answering this question of where my ideas come from, based on my process of making flip dolls as part of this grant project. (The second series is up and running.) What's been special about this round of flip doll workshops at the shelter is that this time I have some fiber artist members of the Potomac Fiber Arts Guild assisting the group. I've really enjoyed their contributions to the group, and the participants who have attended so far have been very interesting to get to know.  And at the same time I want to talk about what happens between an original idea and its execution-what is involved in bringing ideas into reality.

Personal "Demons" as a Source of Creative Ideas:
Many of my dolls have to do with facing my demons or fears. In a way, the format of a flip doll is perfect for this, because you can come at something from two different but related angles at once. Right now I am working on a flip doll that is going to be about exactly that, facing fears related to putting myself out there in the real world. The inspiration for this doll was to choose some fears/demons- I chose six- and to show how they are transformed. I am a shy introvert, so one of the fears is speaking in public or to offer workshops or classes. The image to the left shows a detail from this doll with one of the fears I am working on transforming. It shows the fear of being judged for putting myself out there!  I’ve been working on this doll in my studio but am also bringing it to the workshops at N. Street to show the participants my process.
 
What is inevitably lost between the idea and it’s execution and why that’s always OK
One of my biggest challenges is that, though I have tons of ideas, I can sometimes get lost in the planning stage and never get to the execution stage. I used to spend hours creating complicated graphs and charts of what I was going to do or detailed sketches of future art projects but most of them never saw the light of day. It seemed like there was an inverse relationship between the time spent in planning and the amount I was able to actually get done. Now I spend less time mapping things out, though I still do this to some extent. Instead, I allow myself to take the first steps into something, however imperfect those first steps might feel.
 
The challenge in taking steps into actions is that something always inevitably gets lost from the original idea as soon as it becomes reality.  Part of this has to do with the different worlds that ideas and actual creations live in. Ideas live in the world of dreams and fantasy, where anything is possible and the laws of physics can be bent without any protest. Actual things live in a real world where there are laws of time, space and physics. Yet, what I am learning is, that it is in the interaction of the idea out in the world, that it can truly be shaped and guided into something effective and useful. There is a conversation between the idea and the world, and both are shaped in this process.
 
Working with materials to create mirrors what happens to ideas in the “real world”
This shows up really well when you are working with paint and paper or clay or in my case, fibers and fabric and they don't do what you thought they would do. I used to be stopped at that point by: frustration, perfectionism, or self-doubt.  Or I would push on through, wanting a result that the materials didn’t want to provide. What was missing was taking time to stop and witness what was happening. Seeing that something new could happen that I might never have imagined in the planning stage. Those happy surprises that can only be seen when we take time to let them reveal themselves.  I’m not saying that there is anything wrong with the world of dreams and fantasy. This is in fact where most of my best ideas come from. But it is in the blending of those ideas within the world of reality and groundedness that those fantasies can show their colors and beauty most clearly.
 
Now when I tackle a new idea, I have more of a sense of the rhythm that it needs. When to stop to allow the idea to interact with the world, and when to push on through against resistance that is imaginary. It helps to know that each piece is a step towards something, it's not the last iteration by any means. To know that in creating each piece I will learn something that can be used in my next attempt. And that I am getting closer and closer to that elusive original idea. And this hold true whether the idea is an article I want to write (like right now) a doll I want to make or a series of workshops I wan to lead.

The Joy/Loss Flip Doll
Once about a year and a half ago, when I doll I had made was rejected from a show, I wondered what that feeling of loss would look like in a visual image. I drew this image (see above) or the two women, connected at the waist, one sorrowful and one joyful. The drawing came right out of me in no time, as they sometimes do. But then, when I contemplated making this drawing into a doll, I didn’t feel ready to do so. I wasn’t sure which materials would work or even that it would work as a doll. It took another year or so for me to think of how I might make it. I realized that I could needle felt the whole doll. I could get close to the same colors of the drawing and also the felted doll suggests the vulnerability of the original image.
 
In the images above, I show the steps it took to make the doll, building it out of felt. What I love now is seeing the way people who view this doll react to it, in my studio or in shows. The doll is out in the world and having a conversation. She has something to say and is heard in different ways by different people. And what they have to say also affects her and possibly any future dolls I make related to her.
 
That important step of putting something “out there” even if imperfect-and the importance of finishing
I’m learning that it’s important to finish things. It helps to know that each attempt is the best I can do with the information, materials etc I have on hand at the moment, but not the last attempt. Each time, I am getting my thoughts and ideas out into the world and they are getting shaped by that interaction. It also helps to know that my thoughts and ideas are being received and reacted to, even if the reaction is negative. It all teaches me something.  I hope these observations might help you to take some steps into a new creative project. And I’d love to hear from you if this provoked some thoughts or ideas. Thanks for reading. 

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