I hate when that happens

During the time that I was falling into illness, I was making dolls, but apparently my failing health robbed me of my sense of design, color and memory. Now I think this Lovecraftian style rooster would be something I'd remember, I have no memory of it.

Now one I definitely won't even photograph because it was so awful was a fairy cat sort of figure. I'm stripping it down to the wire on the wings and recovering the body and redoing the head.   I read about Norwegian fairy cats recently and I found the winged purple mess in my supply closet and I think I can redo this piece successfully.

I only have 6 more pieces to work with....

Want a Custom Pet from the Pet Shop of the Old Ones?

I was thinking that it would be a good idea to set up a few listings offering custom soft sculptures of the animals that I make. The Chihuahuas of the Flaming Apocalypse, the 3 different Hexcats, Original, (mini, medium and large), Boogaloo Hexies, (medium and large) for a start.  I'm thinking of adding listings for Crawling eyes and dragons as well.

While I do offer custom sculptures already, it might be easier to just purchase a listing and go from there.  So, if you want a special sculpture in the color and size of your choice, stop by Chatnoirstudios on Etsy and I'll work with you to create the ideal sculpture.

Holiday Shopping Adventure

I make dolls, jewelry...etc and I work from home....so I don't get out much. I worked for years as a teacher and then in retail .....or I directed the workings of hell on earth if your prefer.

I'm used to being alone now.... so shopping or being in large groups of unruly people tends to get on my nerves. I was feeling a bit, well ....random when MJ and I were at Sam's Club last weekend.

I guess I forgot that I was wearing one of my eye pendants and as I was perusing the choices in the candy section because this older chick kept looming at me. She swooped in for the 3rd time and I noted..."You know if you came a little closer I could lick your eyelid." She took off rather quickly. She barreled past MJ...."What was wrong with her? he grumbled. "Probably having a hot flash or something." I replied.

We were picking out a bag of oranges, when some SC chick announced that everyone present was going to receive a free Christmas gift from "Sam"..... a paring knife.

"What a fucking brilliant thing to hand out to grumpy stressed out holiday shoppers! A sharp knife!" I exclaimed. MJ busted out laughing and just had to get in line for his free holiday pig sticker....which now lives in his lunch box.
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I think maybe I need to get out more.....

Friday the 13th is scary?

Okay, it's another Friday the 13th...

Sorry, this is not something that scares me. The number 13 has always boded well for me.

The things that always scared me were people and things that seemed false or pretended to be human like clowns or ventriloquist dummies or even mannequins.


Take clowns for example... did you know that during the middle ages traveling acting troupes used performers in white face and motley clothing as the devil figure in the religious cycle plays? The characters pretended to be sweet and kind but had an evil agenda.

Fear of the pseudo human like a ventriloquist dummy... hmmm maybe that can be traced to stories of wizards giving life to dolls and such that will do their masters' evil bidding. I remember movies like the Devil Doll really scaring the daylights out of me. In that movie, an evil magician trapped his victim's consciousness in a ventriloquist dummy.

Movies and shows that portray clowns and dummies as the frightful things I believe them to be don't bother me too much. I think that's because the clowns and dummies aren't pretending to be nice. Check out Killer Clowns From Outer Spacehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Dns3RKkgko 
or the Canadian tv series Puppets Who Killhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaWltRP8s8c I always knew clowns could suck the essence out of you with crazy straws and that puppets had homicidal issues.

The number 13 will never be something I fear when there are clowns and pseudo human dolls with evil agendas just waiting to do something terrible....


BOOO!

Blind Angel

When most people think about human perfection and beauty a perfect body is what many people imagine. I don't have such a narrow definition. I never have had that idea for many reasons.

I have cerebral palsy and with the partial paralysis of my right arm and leg, I'm far from physically perfect. So, I have spent my whole life listening to..." What's wrong with your hand/ leg; Why do you walk like that?; Are you retarded?"

And I'm as far as I'm concerned barely disabled. If my CP more severe, I can only imagine the extra crap I'd have to put up with in public.

So I think of perfection or beauty differently.  I look like what a person with my type of CP looks like. A person with spinal atrophy, blindness, Downs Syndrome, severe burns etc all look a certain way. And whether you believe it or not, like it or not they are beautiful not in spite of their body, but because of it.  

I've been thinking about my ideas on relative beauty for a long time and how it could relate to what kind of art I create. My first steps into this realm were my animal pieces like my Hexcats who only have one eye because according to their backstory they were magicked by a wizard who was trying to save injured, abandoned and sick animals.  Since people sometimes tend to give more compassion to animals than other humans, these pieces have been successful.

Now I've decided to start adding unusual and physically different art dolls to my shop. Armaita is the first because she introduced herself to me as a figure in a dream.
This dream was about a heated conversation between a human woman and an angel.  As she spoke with the angel, Armaita, the woman realized the angel wasn't looking directly
 at her because the angel's eyes were a pearly white and sightless. 
The woman stepped back angrily and asked, " Why aren't you sighted? Shouldn't angels be perfect? The angel smiled, " We are created with the physical body we need to teach and learn. One doesn't need sight to see a soul. Come with me. We need to have a talk." 

So now I need to continue this conversation with you through my dolls. I hope we both learn about beauty and perfection together.

Tilly - Creature of the Night

Little Tilly was a long time coming. Sometimes dolls just seem to create themselves. This little bat seemed to know what she wanted, I got to her wings and the ideas just disappeared.  I put her away over a year ago and for got about her.

I found the tie dyed fabric I used on her wings and I remembered my little bat awaiting a better set of wings. I got her out of my supply closet and cut the lime green with red splotches I had originally used for the interior of the wings off the armature. No. I have no idea what I was thinking .....lime green and red...yuck.

I think it was part of my slow decent into illness. Now that I'm better my design sense has come back.

One thing I really like on Tilly is all the yarns I used on her hair. I was looking at a hair style site and admiring all the different styles that were dreadlocks or braided  when I was trying to decide how to style her hair.

I really like the results of  researching  hair styles I had not used before now.  Even though she gave me fits I'm really happy I attempted to revive her. Going back and reworking a doll isn't something I usually do, but looking back at my dolls from 2012, I really feel that these half finished pieces  will be better if I rework aspects of these pieces.
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Dolls about strong women- Lilith the original willful Woman

 So according to the articles I read, the first woman was made of the same earth as Adam and her name was Lilith. She didn't care for the missionary position and took off...none of that surveil crap for Lilith.

So Mr. Whiner, (Adam) gets tired of the animals (yeah, I noticed that too.) and asks God to get her back for him. God, probably sighed and sent out 3 angels to drag Lilith back..... This didn't work and Lilith took off again.

Now things in the reference get a bit weird, Lilith either goes off on a baby killing spree, but promises she won't kill any kids named after the angels who came after her; sleeps with one of the aforementioned angels; has a zillion kids by a bunch of horny demons or makes some kind of sexy deal with the Devil and is transformed into a Demon.

Me, I bet she took off and went looking for a more considerate lover.  Eventually Mr. Whiner ("She talked me into trying it!") ends up with the long suffering Eve. Considering Lilith's experience with Adam, I can see why Eve was talking to the only other sentient corporeal life form in the whole garden.

I don't know if Lilith was really bad and deserved to be a demon or she hooked up with one of the angels, but I like that she was not going to put up with being treated badly and took off to make her own way in the world. In my version, Lilith is winged and even though I may call her a demon, I'm very ambivalent about that title.  You can decide for yourself if she really is a demon for wanting a little respect.