A second is in the works as are a few smaller dolls. Several paintings have been completed and will be posted here and on Etsy.
I’m just wetting your appetite. 🙂
Rose bag holder doll
Rose will be posted in my Etsy shop oryou may purchase her directly from this site by using PayPal. If using PayPal you must first contact me and I will send you an invoice. Contact info is on the sidebar as is the link to my Etsy shop. Continue reading “Rose with eyes like water – handmade bag holder doll”
I am having the hardest time finishing this entry. The objective is simple, write a bit about who I am from several different angles.
Before anything at all I am human. That puts me on equal ground with everyone. The second thing I am is a Christian in training. I want very much to know my Creator and his personality.
I’m a woman. That’s important to me. When I was young my nature was mocked. At 44, I celebrate it.
My first love is cooking. I knew I needed to be a chef at age eight. I’m grateful I was able to do it.
By nature I’m a deep thinker. I’ve got artists blood coursing through these veins which means I’m emotional. I live to create. I create well presented meals and I create with paint, wood, paper, canvas, clay, fabric, pixels and just about anything else I can find that will hold the image in my head.
I’m a lover of tea and breaks during the day where a hot drink will allow me to regroup, recoup. Antique books excite me. The feel of art paper excites me as does running my hands over wood and stones. I am visceral.
As some know, this body of mine dictates if I will move or lie still. Due to a permanent nerve injury to my right arm, I can be limited in action, including holding a tea cup, a cane, paintbrush and pen. In addition, my eyes are growing dim. Strength in several areas of my upper and lower body have deteriorated. Even so, I have one other activity to discuss in which I participate.
I’ve mentioned my love for yoga but in private settings I’ve spoken more. I love contemporary and lyrical dance. I am my own dancer. I have set music that I do yoga stretches to. From there I began to move free-form. Once I realized I’d tapped into something deep in my bones I began to wear a free flowing skirt. I removed the toe from medical compression stocking and moved about joyfully. What do I enjoy? The feminine movements, turning yoga into a dance and doing so not in sweatpants and workout clothes, but in a flowing skirt with “dancers feet” (black compression hose). Sometimes my hair is down but other times the dreadlocks are in a headdress.
This is the very first item I am offering for the new year which really makes me smile.    SOLD
This young lady is a handmade African American rag doll with a hand painted face and handmade clothes. She’s a lovely girl, a shelf sitter girl to be added to your collection. Although she is sturdy, she is not meant to be a toy. The dolls photographed with her are part of my personal collection and are not for sale. They’re mine all mine. lol
Back to Priscilla. She is approximately 15 inches and has been hand painted and heat sealed three times. Her shoes are hand painted and sealed as well. Miss Priscilla’s dress is made of red, white and brown checked material. It’s not a bright red. I don’t know the names of these fabrics but I can tell you it used to be a skirt purchased for it’s material 🙂 It is the perfect look for a folk doll. Her little scarf is olive green with a tiny little gold dot to match the gold edges. (Please note: there is a gold dot spill on the scarf. It would have been worse had I attempted to correct it. I left it.) Priscilla is wearing tiny little white undies. Her short, simple hair is made of soft, textured yarn that resembles African American hair. As with many of my dolls I’ve given her a soft red glow on her cheeks, blue above her eyes and sweet lips.
To combine art scribbled in black ink, inked in with deep blue, crimson and yellow can be sobering. To add these art pieces as a collage over the face they affect was to show that Lupus is more than what you read on a blog. It’s more than the art itself. It’s not pretty. What this collage says for me is: for many, Lupus isn’t written so clearly on the face.
The digital collage is made up of the following art pieces.
Bruised Reed – Redbubble
In the collage called “Like Girls Do” there is a piece of writing that says in part:
Years of laughter and chit-chat captured in cards and letters with flowers and smiley faces like girls do…… half cursive, half print promises that nothing…. under a cardboard lid with edges worn and weary of holding our secrets, the last….. “
While the original art pieces are available in my Etsy shop or via PayPal, the collage is not for use or sale. But, don’t worry, I’m getting there. The writing is on the back of work in progress.
Faith
Please respect the copyright and Please respect the art’s wishes.
Times 32 on the multifunctional remote, flash blurred scenes for you. My eyes have processed them all, bit by bit, no translation of hue or tone lost to speed.
I see. I hear. I can’t make it stop.
Pulled plugs, short circuit, a hundred failed attempts to rewire.
Still I hear
every car honk, every cellphone ring and every exasperated, exhausted,
needy inner plea, burned in the screen of my mind .
This may look familiar. I’ve had it forever. “The Tin Man”. He also reminds me of a puppet on strings and the need for freedom. From what?
Tin Man – Available
From the things that wrap around pnd me. I feel tangled. I feel lost, pulled in several different directions, floating above unstable ground. MY HEART IS BROKEN and I can’t seem to make it stop hurting.
Go here and get twisted around so you’ll feel better and, less pain.
Go here and for this doctor’s magic.
I just want to see my therapist again. I want to remember his face. I saw him in person today but he was so blurry. I couldn’t see him.
I’m still trying to come to terms with the health scare.
Patience – unavailable
I micromanaged every move for fear it would be my last. I thought about a journal I’ve lost touch with, a girl who wrote about the “indignity of death.” How is she? Where is she? I cleaned my room because no one should have to clean it up. I started to take out the trash but I was tired. Then I thought, if I won’t be here tomorrow I should turn off the heat, ya know? I thought about doing my hair then realized it wouldn’t matter. I never thought, I need to throw away this or that so no one finds it.
 They just aren’t, some issues are so frightening that even in the line of the sun they are still pitch black, still frightening.
When I painted this child, I did so with full knowledge that she may not sell. I have a problem though, I can’t paint gentle art if that’s not what’s inside. So I did what I do. I painted what I know.
Little Ariel knew it would rain. How does a person with Fibromyalgia and /or Lupus know it’ll rain even without turning on the weather report? Our bones tell us. The pain level shoots up high. Our eye sight is affected. Our fingers, lips and toes get cold. The pain level shoots up so high and so fast that it’ll double the body over. What’s interesting to me is that I’m caught off guard every time.
I hold my side. I’m bending down, seconds from loosing lunch, but it hasn’t clicked. I don’t understand what’s happening to my body. When I try to get to the car I see its sprinkling, raining or even light snow. Now it makes sense. Finally I realize the weather system has changed  and that has affected my pain, my complexion, fingers, lips, eyes and my ability to think rationally. It’s as if I’ve been sucked in and can’t see my way out….  but not so fast. I can see my way out. Continue reading “Some Things Aren’t Easy to Look At”
I look at the drawing called “The Hide” and question how much I should reveal concerning it’s symbolism. I’m sure if viewed long enough it will interpret itself without me or anyone else having uttered a word. However, if one word were to wrap up how I felt as the ink crossed on paper, that word would be vulnerable. Vulnerable is the dominant emotion felt when I display art that expresses Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Dissociative Identity Disorder.
My heart sinks with each intricate line that builds a fortress from the inside out. Figure after figure emerges with each level of lines. Though the staircase would appear to lead down to the central black figure, in my mind it leads up. The figure is in a fortress of her own making, and that fortress is….. I’m not sure how to end the sentence.
