Art Dolls Are a Whole Different Animal

Are Art dolls a craft or art? Most people limit their definition of three-dimensional art to sculpture made of wood, stone or bronze. Art dolls, consisting of less noble materials, often in combination, seem to fail to qualify . So they get relegated to the craft department. But wait, doesn't craft refer to something that's useful? Art dolls are not toys and serve no practical function, so they don't qualify there either.

Meanwhile, many art galleries have come to accept mixed media as a valid art form in wall-hung art - one can hardly call some of them paintings. So art dollmakers have hope that their mixed media work will be accepted as legitimate sculpture.

What is an art doll?

Art Dolls can take many guises and be made of many different materials. The one thing an art doll is NOT, is a toy. Art dollmakers have long been dissatisfied with the word doll to describe what they do. They've tried "mixed media sculptures" which leaves out art dolls made entirely of cloth. Calling them "dressed/clothed sculptures" implies that sculptures in more traditional materials are naked. Besides, not all art dolls are dressed or clothed either.

To use imported words like the Italian bambola or the Norwegian dokke, aside from sounding arch and pretentious, may be fine for the rest of the world, but is of no help to Italian or Norwegian dollmakers. Besides, these words still fail to exclude the concept of toy. Dollmakers in other countries seem to be stuck with art doll as well. French: poupée d'Art, German: Kunstler Puppen, Dutch: kunstenaars poppen, and in Spanish: arte muñeca. Italian gets more specific with doll for collectors: bambola da collezione.

No matter what language, an art doll is a kind of sculpture, an art object for your home like a painting. Like any original art object, as opposed to prints or reproductions, an art doll is neither mass produced nor manufactured. It is handmade by an artist, individual as a painting, and usually referred to as "one of a kind," or OOAK.

Popular types

Although you can find an art doll representing just about any kind of person you can imagine, certain types are perennially more popular: fairies, elves and trolls, babies, celebrity portraits, goth figures, and probably most popular of all, children.

Two other groups of OOAK need to be given fair mention. Both do use a pre-manufactured doll for their foundations, but Repainted Fashion Dolls and Reborn Baby Dolls are otherwise truly OOAK. Both types are stripped down to the basic purchased doll and refinished to be completely unique. Repaints will get a thorough make-over - new hair, new glam makeup, and fabulous new clothes. Reborns get weights added in critical places to make them feel like a live baby sleeping in your arms. Their newly painted skin and new hair meticulously impersonate a real baby. You have to assure yourself that one is cold and not breathing to tell it's not alive.

Size is No Limit

An art doll can be any size at all, from babies curled up inside real walnut shells to life size adults! One third life size, or 16-18" is common, give or take a few inches. Miniature fairies a mere 5-6" tall in astounding detail are quite popular. Both male and female tend to be scantily clad and lusciously sexy. Dollhouse size art dolls at 1/12th scale also run about 6" tall.

Heads

OOAK art dolls are classified by the material the head is made of. Doll heads can be carved wood, gourds, or anything else a dollmaker can find. The most common head materials are low-fire polymer clay, air dry clay, or stuffed cloth. Hands, sometimes feet, indeed any exposed skin will probably be made of the same material as the head so they match it in texture. Virtually all clay heads and body parts are sculpted directly, not cast in molds. The sculpted piece will be cured appropriately, painted and/or sealed, given hair and attached to the body. A few dollmakers sculpt directly in porcelain. These have to be fired the same as cast porcelain.

Cloth doll heads are usually made of two or more shaped parts which are sewn together and stuffed to form a three-dimensional head. These can range from the same flat shape front and back (called a pancake doll) to fully shaped. Features can be needle sculpted with tiny adroitly placed stitches for startlingly real effects. Some doll makers sculpt a face in clay and glue a layer of cloth over it. Faces are often painted directly on the cloth. Some are very subtle or minimal, some - especially on the flat faced - are so exquisitely painted as to appear three-dimensional.

Bodies

As with heads, there's no limit to what can be used for a doll body - gourds, bottles, sticks, wire, boxes, driftwood...anything. Except for solid wood or tightly stuffed small cloth dolls, most bodies need a basic armature of metal wire or tubes to keep them in the desired posture. This armature may be wrapped with batting and/or cloth, or embedded inside a sewn cloth body, usually several shaped pieces sewn together and stuffed. Bodies may also be fully sculpted in clay (air dry or polymer) or papier mache'. In the case of long enveloping robes or skirts, there could be no body inside at all, just a cone of wire, stuffed cloth, or some other structure. Dollmakers are quite resourceful.

Art dolls are usually rigidly posed in a lifelike posture, but again, there is no set rule. Poseable dolls with articulated joints are growing in popularity.

One Of A Kind and Limited Editions

Makers of OOAK art dolls scrupulously avoid using patterns or molds devised by anyone else or any pre-manufactured foundations. They take pride in sculpting the figure "from scratch" so that it is completely their own original design and work.

Some resin or porcelain dolls that require casting are produced in small numbers as "limited editions" instead of OOAK. A mold is made of the original sculpted clay or wax head and body parts for casting. Each copy in the limited edition may be dressed and/or painted individually by the artist so they are almost OOAK. Such multiples are always clearly labeled and numbered the same way as a series of silk screen prints printed by the artist.

The best way to understand the variety and beauty of art dolls is to visit some sites that show them. When you have a few minutes or hours to spare, Google "ooak art dolls" and be prepared for a dazzling journey. Other leads to Google: cloth art dolls, fairy art dolls, reborn babies, fashion repaints, and any of the types listed above.

The author is president of the Texas Association of Original Doll Artists, with links to member artists' pages and a member of the Dollmakers' Internet Community.