FINALLY Making Progress...Sort of

So...as some of you may know I am in graduate school striving towards my Master of Fine Arts degree.  I am now about a year and a half into the program and I am JUST starting to produce work!  I tell you, the mind is a powerful thing. I have, up until now, worked myself into a lather because of my insecurities. Currently I am the only fiber artist amongst sculptors, painters, and photographers in the graduate program.  Of course I feel like they're looking at me like "Umm...you have a degree in Fashion Design. Lat-tee-dah...but are you an ARTIST?" Like I said, that's how I FEEL. They could probably care less.  Up until now I would answer to the title of seamstress, even designer.  But now I'm a fiber artist and that sounds way sexier! LOL

Anyhoo, our solo exhibition (which I am working towards) and thesis is expected to revolve around a central theme.  I've chosen to base my work on skin modification like tattoos, piercing, implants, etc.  Truth be told, I chose that because it seemed like something that wouldn't be too hard to write a 20+ page thesis about!  Of course since my Bachelor's degree is in Fashion, The obvious thing would have been for me to make clothing.  But the goal is to make Fine Art and I didn't want to use a lot of time and materials to make garments no one would probably wear.  So long story short, I decided to do dolls.  After I got the hang of making them (thanks to Patti Culea's fabulous books and the Internet) that's pretty much all I was doing and soon I had a big ole basket of doll parts!

They took so long to make that I was scared to paint on them for fear of messing them up.  So, fast forward to now and I am proud to say I just took the leap and I am pleased with how it's going so far.

First of all, for styling, I was inspired by Insectivora Angelica, a performer at Coney Island

And here's a head shot of my first (mostly) complete doll endeavor:

I promise you that when I read about addictive doll making is, I totally believe it now!

Now that I've accomplished this much, I think I deserve a break...and by that I mean taking time to work on new bags for MASHULU!