Tag Archives: doll

Annie in Indigo

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Annie in Indigo 💙

Inspired by celebrated and award-winning costume designer, Ruth Carter‘s color palette for actress, Wunmi Mosaku‘s character, Annie, in Ryan and Zinzi Cogler’s film, Sinners, which also starred Michael B. Jordan. She was made for SCRAPTACULAR, Blue: The Tatter Textile Library’s silent auction.

She will be my first doll up for sale, the only one to fly away. That she will live with someone who loves and supports Tatter, and therefore loves textiles and all that they intersect with, that seems fitting.

Annie is adorned entirely in scrap textiles, all but one is indigo dyed. Her body and garments are all handsewn, absolutely no machine stitching (made by me) on this one.

Her hair is wool roving, both braided and needle felted and her face features needle felted brows and embroidered eyes, nose and mouth. Hints of blush soften her cheeks while bead dangle earrings add a special touch. Her body is button jointed with hinged knees for articulated posing.

The indigo fabrics were dyed years and years apart. Some at @textileartscenter with newly made friends who have become family. And others more recently resist dyed @prattdyegarden and batch dyed garments @agatheringofstitches with, you guessed it, newly made friends. The yarn braided together with strips of fabric was dyed by @betterthanjam here in Brooklyn. The only non-indigo piece is a scrap from fabric given to me from @diaryofasewingfanatic’s fabric cave which continues the theme of love and community being an integral part of making Annie.

I hope you love her and that she’s loved in her new home.

What is a doll?

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What is a doll? That was the question at the center of my Legacy of Black Dolls lecture at Tatter.

What’s in a doll? : African dolls for ritual and play, from the collection of the Society of African Missions, January 31-August 31, 1999 – scanned from the Collection of the Brooklyn Museum Library

How is defining something so simple complicated by history, geography, by gender, by economic class, by race and further considerations of who is allowed leisure, who is allowed to be a child? We, those of us enraptured by dolls, seek to illuminate these questions, and more, through historical explorations of doll history, memorabilia, contemporary doll collectors, new perspectives and representation in museums collections and more. But, those explorations don’t necessarily get us closer to the essential question – what is a doll?

I am on a journey of sorts to find an answer.

For my purposes, and what I think I set out to explore when I was invited to give the lecture, is closer to what Black writer and academic, Margo Jefferson, captured in her entry for the book Black Dolls from the Collection of Deborah Neff.

Jefferson states:

“Dolls are the only toys made in our image, the only human-like creatures’ children are given dominion over. You, the child, are the creator of an ordered existence: a miniature kingdom that can imitate or disrupt the logic of your everyday life, the life conceived of and run by adults. They do what they want with you. You do what you want with the doll. You’re loving, you’re fickle; you’re imperious and stern. You coo and comfort the doll, you hurl it down and spank it. You dress and undress the doll, as you are dressed and undressed. You speak to it, you speak as it, you speak for it. So much of your time goes to courting and evading adult attention. You reenact all this with your dolls. You try to improve on it giving them what you don’t get (not enough of anyway) from those humans who rule your life.”

How would you respond to the this question? What is a doll to you? Please comment, below.

Doll Renaissance

Posted in Doll, Sewing by
Williams, Milton. Monique fixes her doll’s hair on her babysitter’s doorstep. September 21, 1979. 2011.15.105. National Museum of African American History and Culture Collection. Washington, D.C.

“They induce a rapture in this viewer. They say: I am black and comely in all conceivable ways. I am varying shades of black, brown and beige. I am decorous, impish, fearsome and wise. They say: I have my vanity. (Gaze on my dark, lustrous eyelashes and smartly-coiffed hair.) They say: I have my griefs. (Count the tears on my cheeks.)”
– Margo Jefferson, Black Dolls

I am beyond delighted to return to blogging to share that I have been enraptured by all things doll.

Through a series of fortunate events, I was asked to teach a series of doll-making workshops at BLUE: The Tatter Textile Library, in Brooklyn, New York. This offer to teach has turned into a renewed passion for dollmaking and Black doll history.

Born out of the lecture I gave on the Legacy of Black Dolls at BLUE: The Tatter Textile Library I have reaffirmed my deep attachment to dolls – making and researching their history. I am already deeper and more confident in my making practice and am exploring research facilities, libraries, museums and archives and delving into monographs and collection catalogs to see what doll-related goodies I can find.

This academic year has been busy and promising. But I am mindful to continue thinking of this specific avenue of inquiry not only in box checking career terms, but remaining clear in my purpose to learn and make for my own joy and edification. As well as the joy of sharing with others. Nothing quite does that like the handling of teeny limbs and garments and uncovering the beauty of a well-worn doll, exclaimed over with like-minded folks.

It is my hope to return to sharing here on this blog. To spend time drafting posts and sharing knowledge. To provide a place for us to connect and share. To share updates and news. To post about dolls in all their expansive glory.

I will return to share more about my work at Tatter and what’s coming up for me and the dolls.