Pre-lated birthday lunch, old shoes and new art

Today's the only day Handsome Son is free to come and serve us lunch for my upcoming birthday, very early this year, and he refers to it as pre-lated, opposite of belated!

Table with puzzle in progress 

Cloths thrown over puzzle pieces, table ready for lunch, mystery menu.

Remember a while back I fancied making myself some paleolithic leather shoes, but my leather budget wasn't up to it? Here's a more modern pair, just window shopping in the museum here.

And today there's some art I thought you'd like, including a shot of the artist's hand at work

Happy day everyone, rain today but it's okay, happy lunch and maybe some help bringing out decorations for Christmas, which this year will feature art dolls, all in one place, first time. They may get rowdy.

In nets of golden wyres

As I worked on the doll hair yesterday I got an earworm phrase. This is often how art titles come, and whole art concepts with them.

The phrase was "in nets of golden wyres", a canzonet duet by Elizabethan composer, musician, Thomas Morley, a great favorite when I played recorder. There's a series of these canzonets, which just means little songs. Likewise Michael East trios, another favorite song series to play..

As you notice, I haven't named the dolls as if they were people. That's because I mean them as art statements, in a series. But I was still waiting for them to tell me their statements, and to get the idea of the series.

And here they are, after I rummaged through my sheet music

You see the idea of the current doll there, the golden wires meaning her curly hair, which the narrator fell for, it's a love song.

And White as Lillies is the East phrase for the first doll. This doesn't mean I'll search for titles then make a doll that fits, but rather I'll make the doll then the phrase will come. Leap and the net will appear. My lifelong approach, hasn't failed me yet. 

If this thinking is all Greek to you, don't worry, just let it flow over you! I wonder what a Greek would say? If this is all English to you etc?

Meanwhile, back in the workshop, here's the narrative

Cotton roving, which I hope to learn to spin with my supported spindle, now waiting in the wings. It's soft as swansdown, lovely to handle, and I have plenty, so I can use it here to stuff Wyres.

Meanwhile, she has a body, downtime before I make limbs for her, and food is happening. 

Misfits box arrives later today, and I'm using the last of the sweet potatoes. 

Note the recycled bag marked stock. And the little heap of trimmings. I'm going to make vegetable stock from the trimmings from now on for a while. 

The trimmings I've been chucking out back have turned into fertile soil already, hence the sudden appearance of the squash plant, or melon, whichever, and the enormous growth of what was a tiny blackberry plant from out front.

So I will also do this:

Save up trimmings in the freezer, create stock eventually, toss the strained residue out back. Thank you, Leigh, blogger of 5 Acres & a Dream, for reminding me of this possibility.  Still nothing wasted. 

Go read her blog, it's lovely. You don't have to be a smallholder with crops and animals, living self sufficiently, eating what you grow, to enjoy her narrating the life of a couple who do all that.

And today's lunch is roasted sweet potatoes, in olive oil, Old Bay, currently my go-to, seasalt, and a chicken thigh, buttered and rolled in panko. 

I didn't pound this one thin, just left it rolled.

Next,  to empty the sink ready to wash fruit and veggies when the box arrives, and sort out strainers and colanders and cloths for inevitable water splashes.

It's all go!

Soft sculpture, art doll style

For years I've been thinking about trying soft sculpture, maybe lifesize figures, using my own clothes, sculpting the faces by stitching. Then not wanting to have slightly unnerving large sculptures around. I've done miniaturized soft sculpture in the form of trapunto stitching, even literally miniaturizing kits for my miniature club long ago.

But I came around recently to thinking art dolls, maybe for exhibit, if and when that happens. Meanwhile it's an interesting artform to explore with the sculpting being done on the faces. It does squick me out a  bit, thinking about putting a needle into a face.  But I think I'll do it.

If you haven't made dolls you might not know how soon and how eerily they take on a personality. Even stitching the Dollivers faces felt intrusive.  And how often you reproduce your own facial expressions and physical build.

Anyway here's what I came across. Patti Medaris Culea. She was an exhibiting artist and portrait painter before moving into art dolls.

The thing I am liking about this current adventure is that I can use a lot of skills from other artforms, drawing, painting, spinning, embroidery, beading, knitting, dressmaking you name it. It's a journey of imagination.

One thing I don't plan on unlike a number of these artists, is using hot glue. I'll stitch.

As I read this book which shows other doll artists' work, I was reminded of what one of my sisters said when she got into miniature making, my fault, that it paid to have a lot of arts and crafts experience, and leftover materials available. Otherwise you'd spend a fortune getting started.

It also occurred to me that the bag of scrap fabrics still waiting in the car, too hot to go to the thriftie, might be pressed into service again..a Failed Winnowing.

Before i get us to now, here are some dolls and animals I've made, mostly knitted. I have a history, as they say of recidivists.

And here's the Dolliver luggage. 

Christmas dresses, felt and lace

Suffragists outfits.

Many permanent items, as well as scraps of exotic stuff for temporary clothes for photo shoots. A couple of the long skirts might work for the new, I hope series, depending on how it works.

We return to the drawer of embroidery things, silk and linen scraps, beads, butterflies. 

And I did retain a little supply of vital dollmaking materials through the breakdown of the studio. Including doll needles. 

Anyway here's what I'm trying. The raw base materials: trouser socks, white, tan, black, choices. Had them for years. I started with the white for easy visibility until I find out what I'm doing.

My idea is to create a doll from one sock, with moveable arms and legs, without cutting parts separately and attaching them. So this entailed little drawings and outloud discussions with myself as I went. Since the fabric is knitted, no fraying concerns. 

The doll book reminded me of teaching the proportions of the face, to disbelieving students who even after measuring, found them hard to accept! Almost impossible, too,  to realize what a small amount of the human head is occupied by facial features.

Handy grid, courtesy of doll book

And here's more or less what's happening.

The seam starts a ready made nose

See how soon she's sitting up and taking notice? Soon there will be opinions. And she doesn't even have legs yet.