Video of Solo show at the WAS Gallery, see below:
This video below of my solo exhibit, "There, There: Healing Dolls as Solace in an Off Kilter World," January through March of 2019 shows my dolls up until that point. The video tells the story of many of my dolls in detail and helps you to see them in three dimensions. Several of the dolls have sold. I have tried to note in the gallery which dolls are no longer available.
You can also find me on Instagram and on Facebook. I tend to post daily on Instagram with updates about my dolls, posting progress photos and notes about what I am thinking about in my studio.
Please also check out my other website, see below, for paintings and some other dolls.
You can also find me on Instagram and on Facebook. I tend to post daily on Instagram with updates about my dolls, posting progress photos and notes about what I am thinking about in my studio.
Please also check out my other website, see below, for paintings and some other dolls.
Art Focused Website.
Erika Cleveland Art
This website also has paintings, a new focus as well as additional dolls. Click here to view.
Gallery of Dolls
Note: Please scroll down to see more about the dolls and their stories below. Click on images to see more dolls in that category. Please contact me if you are interested in purchasing a doll. To see some of my very first dolls, "where it all began," click here.
All images copyright Erika Cleveland, 2024
All images copyright Erika Cleveland, 2024
Ancestor Dolls
I have always been interested in the idea that we are connected to our ancestors, both blood relatives and chosen, those who influence us from below the earth. Here is a recent ancestor doll.
Click here or on the image below to see more Ancestor Dolls.
Click here or on the image below to see more Ancestor Dolls.
Anna in Einer Eichel Mütze (Anna in an Acorn Hat)/Kinder des Waldes (Children of the Forest)
Anna in an Acorn Hat… depicts three generations in my German mother’s family, telling the story of how my mother’s family dealt with the hardships of wartime Germany. Darks and sepia represent hardship, while spots of color show inventiveness and creativity, with magical fairy tale details.
Anna in an Acorn Hat… depicts three generations in my German mother’s family, telling the story of how my mother’s family dealt with the hardships of wartime Germany. Darks and sepia represent hardship, while spots of color show inventiveness and creativity, with magical fairy tale details.
Healing Crone Dolls
These dolls are about tapping into the power of the crone. Inspired by the work of Barb Kobe, one of my most important doll making mentors, these dolls have healing properties.
Click here or on the image to see more Healing Crone Dolls.
Click here or on the image to see more Healing Crone Dolls.
Red Russian Shaman
Stick Doll
The Red Russian Shaman doll is a wise old crone. Light in weight and light on her feet, she carries at the same time the weight of ancient wisdom. The reds of her cloak symbolize passion and fire. She is aflame with life and purpose.
At the same time, the pale greys and whites of her skin and fur headdress suggest bone, perhaps even death. She sees beyond death and has lived many lifetimes. This part of her is connected to what is ageless, and what doesn’t change. All those parts of life that remain when all else has gone. Stones and bones that remain for eons, after the body has gone.
She can withstand and can help you to withstand the coldest colds and the darkest nights. She is steadfast and strong. SOLD
Stick Doll
The Red Russian Shaman doll is a wise old crone. Light in weight and light on her feet, she carries at the same time the weight of ancient wisdom. The reds of her cloak symbolize passion and fire. She is aflame with life and purpose.
At the same time, the pale greys and whites of her skin and fur headdress suggest bone, perhaps even death. She sees beyond death and has lived many lifetimes. This part of her is connected to what is ageless, and what doesn’t change. All those parts of life that remain when all else has gone. Stones and bones that remain for eons, after the body has gone.
She can withstand and can help you to withstand the coldest colds and the darkest nights. She is steadfast and strong. SOLD
Flip Dolls
Large Scale Flip Dolls
Some of my larger flip dolls make dramatic statements. Often they address themes related to the environment or feminine spirituality. Here is one of my first large scale flip dolls, Rhea, Mother Earth/Raina, Every Woman is an Empress.
Click on image below to see more large scale flip dolls.
Click on image below to see more large scale flip dolls.
Rhea, Mother Earth/Raina, Everywoman is an Empress,
Flip Doll
One side of this doll is Rhea, a Roman mythological figure symbolizing Mother of the Gods, and in this case, representing Mother Earth. She has an image of the tree of life on her belly and twelve creatures, mythological and real. Her two consorts or guides sit on either of her shoulders.
On the other side is Raina, symbolizing Everywoman, in her guise as an empress. Her guides or consorts sit on her shoulders. The mythological figures of griffins on either side of her heart also act as protective figures. The veins and arteries of the heart (on the Raina side) connect to the rivers and streams (on the Rhea side.) The doll as a whole symbolizes how as women we are deeply connected to the earth.
Shadow Flip Dolls
Smaller Flip dolls with a variety of subjects. These continue to be my obsession.
Click on image below to see more Shadow Flip Dolls
Click on image below to see more Shadow Flip Dolls
Medusa and The Octopus Under the Sea/Tea Time
(Under the Sea side)
Shadow Flip Doll
Talisman Flip Dolls
North/South Talisman Flip Doll
This is the first doll in my very latest series of flip dolls. I will be posting more as I make them.
You can find more images of the Talisman flip dolls in my other website: erikaclevelandart.com
NOTE: This doll has sold.
Original Healing dolls
To view some of the original healing dolls, from back in the beginning of my healing doll journey, click on the image below. This version of Rhea: Shedding the Old was one of the first healing dolls that I made.
Click here or on the image below to see more Original Dolls.
Click here or on the image below to see more Original Dolls.
Rhea: Shedding the Old
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This doll is about that stage in the process of transformation when we have shed the skin of old habits and behaviors and are left naked and vulnerable, yet in excited anticipation of what is to come. You can read more about her on my healing journey page.
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Fairy Tale Dolls
Selkie: Rising from the Deep was one of my first dolls inspired by fairy tales. To see more fairly tale dolls, click here or on the image of the Selke below.
Selkie: Rising From the Deep
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The Selkie is a Scottish "fairy," described in Scottish tales told by lonely fishermen who believed they saw seals turn into women. In the fairy tale, a fisherman induces a "selkie" to come to his home, marry him and have his children, when he hides her sealskin from her. But the story always has an unhappy ending because inevitably the selkie finds the sealskin and, sliding back into it, returns forever to the sea. In my version, the selkie is about the artist's challenge/task of living both in the "real" world and the world of imagination and creativity. It makes me happy to think that I can move between both worlds.
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Beyond Dolls
The Kalili Project
Image below is from Kalili's Journey, a multi-media exhibit. Triptych Five (of Twelve) Journey to the Village of Ysadluftville and Dame Solterling, Goauche on Strathmore Bristol paper, 14 x 23 unframed, 17 x 26 framed. 2018.
MORE TO COME ABOUT THIS PROJECT.
MORE TO COME ABOUT THIS PROJECT.
Below is my statement about Kalili's Journey, a mixed media body of work involving both dolls, paintings and books.
My art guides you on a journey into a dangerous and forbidden land of the unseen and hidden. Inspired by fairy and folk tales, by myths of ancient goddesses and by dreams, the images that show up in my dolls and paintings are meant to challenge you to see in the dark, under the earth and into your dreams.
To do this kind of journeying, you need a guide, and in this exhibit, the guide is Kalili, an ancient crone with healing powers, who showed up in my studio one day and asked for her story to be told. The world of dreams and myth is an upside-down world. You can find yourself at any moment swallowed up by the earth, or turned inside out into a dragon. To capture this inside-outness, I very often make flip dolls, which are two sided dolls, connected at the waist. Flip dolls (sometimes called topsy-turvy dolls,) can hold opposites within them, while at the same time revealing the interconnectedness of life. Because no matter how opposite each side is from each other, they are always connected at the waist.
In making my dolls, I look for faces, sometimes my own or those of my ancestors, sometimes the faces of inner guides who show up in my imagination. The realness of the faces makes the dolls and the figures in these stories relatable, no matter how strange the world around them might seem. Similarly, though the landscapes of my art are imaginary, they are rooted in a deep connection with nature, especially with trees, which to me are living beings. I am a tree hugger and I believe I can have just as deep a relationship with trees as with another human being. Kalili knows about this because one of her many other identities is as a tree being. She is an alter ego for me, connecting me to the world of the unseen. She is deeply connected to Mother Earth and represents the power of the feminine spirit within us all.
In addition to spending my days making healing dolls, I also teach women how to make their own healing dolls. We go on creative journeys to meet with and befriend our inner shadows. In my art, I invite the viewer to confront her or his own shadow, the shadow that lives within you and the shadow that we as a collective culture have cast upon the world of nature around us. My art reflects the brokenness of our world and is also a reminder that we have the capacity to heal and embrace that which we have broken.
My art guides you on a journey into a dangerous and forbidden land of the unseen and hidden. Inspired by fairy and folk tales, by myths of ancient goddesses and by dreams, the images that show up in my dolls and paintings are meant to challenge you to see in the dark, under the earth and into your dreams.
To do this kind of journeying, you need a guide, and in this exhibit, the guide is Kalili, an ancient crone with healing powers, who showed up in my studio one day and asked for her story to be told. The world of dreams and myth is an upside-down world. You can find yourself at any moment swallowed up by the earth, or turned inside out into a dragon. To capture this inside-outness, I very often make flip dolls, which are two sided dolls, connected at the waist. Flip dolls (sometimes called topsy-turvy dolls,) can hold opposites within them, while at the same time revealing the interconnectedness of life. Because no matter how opposite each side is from each other, they are always connected at the waist.
In making my dolls, I look for faces, sometimes my own or those of my ancestors, sometimes the faces of inner guides who show up in my imagination. The realness of the faces makes the dolls and the figures in these stories relatable, no matter how strange the world around them might seem. Similarly, though the landscapes of my art are imaginary, they are rooted in a deep connection with nature, especially with trees, which to me are living beings. I am a tree hugger and I believe I can have just as deep a relationship with trees as with another human being. Kalili knows about this because one of her many other identities is as a tree being. She is an alter ego for me, connecting me to the world of the unseen. She is deeply connected to Mother Earth and represents the power of the feminine spirit within us all.
In addition to spending my days making healing dolls, I also teach women how to make their own healing dolls. We go on creative journeys to meet with and befriend our inner shadows. In my art, I invite the viewer to confront her or his own shadow, the shadow that lives within you and the shadow that we as a collective culture have cast upon the world of nature around us. My art reflects the brokenness of our world and is also a reminder that we have the capacity to heal and embrace that which we have broken.
Felted Panels
The felted panels were all created in 2016 alongside of the larger dolls Baba Yaga and Vasilisa. I found them a welcome relief from the demanding process of creating the large dolls. The panels were an exercise in creating some of the imagery and detail in the larger dolls. The panels were also much quicker to execute in contrast to the large dolls which could take months at a time ( or occasionally years)
