Hedwig Revisited

Boy, I have never experienced so many emotions all in one day and for so many days running and the sad thing is, I am not the only one feeling this way. Nothing unites us globally like a disaster of epic proportions. We are fortunate enough to have the option to stay home and wait this out instead of being out in the wild fending for ourselves and I am glad to see a lot of my friends and their friends doing constructive things with their time while keeping themselves and their families safe.

Right before everything went awry, I was asked to paint another Hedwig and the Angry Inch set, which I did between staring dumbly at the wall and crying and processing all sorts of unfamiliar emotions surging through me. I myself have nothing to worry about since I’m practically a shut in and I have had hoarded supplies in the past as a habit so I didn’t have to go out and grab things I didn’t need and deprive others who truly needs them, but I worry about my family and friends and my husband, who all of a sudden is deemed an essential worker after years of having his job maligned and laughed at by the more elite members of society. I am so proud of my husband for being out there every day making sure everyone gets what they need while making sure those who work under him are protected and looked after and ensuring they all hold on to their jobs in these uncertain times. It doesn’t stop me from giving him a stern talking to when he trails bits of grass and bark all over the house but I am very well aware of his incredible ability to see things in a broad scope and implement it the best he could.

I made this Hedwig set with much sadness, but the music buoyed my spirits once I got going. If nothing else, we’ve always got art, don’t we? Please stay safe because the outcome of this devastation is going to be more spectacular than the life we’ve known before.

This new version of Hedwig has two new additions: The Menses Fair look which I adore because it’s so feminine and the look John Cameron Mitchell rocked when he did the “Return to the Origin of Love” tour a few years back.

And let’s do that. Let’s all return to the origin of love. Use this time in isolation to really think about what important in our lives and what we can do to help ourselves be even better human beings and from there we can help others as well as this planet that had been so good to us for so very long.

 

Radiohead

In these utterly chaotic and uncertain times I’m glad I have a little place to escape to. From time to time I wished that my work would allow me to be a bit more present in the real world, but for the most part I’m glad to be doing what I do…especially now. I am virtually a shut-in and therefore am equipped to entertain myself should I be forced into quarantine. There’s never a shortage of things to do around the house or my sweatshop. It’ll be business as usual, especially now I’ll have spades of time to work on stuff that’s on the back burner or laid aside due to scheduling conflict.

I always enjoyed painting musicians because it’s a challenge to not only capture their physical form in a set of dolls, but convey the essence of the music they make in a non-audio medium. I was so excited to paint Radiohead because A) I’m a big fan of their music and B) their physical appearance is somewhat monochromatic so I can really focus on just their faces and instruments, the former a bit of a challenge as I’m not always able to hit every facial portrait right on the mark. But I went into this set with a lot of confidence because, well, I more or less grew up listening to their music and feel like I could tackle the most challenging part of this set with all the skills I’ve incurred over the years. The end result was satisfactory for me and I was grateful for the many hours I got to turn off the internet and lose myself in my work.

Stay safe out there, everyone. We cannot allow the unseen enemy take us down. We all have so much more to do in each and every single minute of our precious lives.

In the meanwhile, queue up some Radiohead tracks and just leave the news and crazy rumors for a little while. It helps.

Beetlejuice Mega Set

I painted a Beetlejuice set a while back after unearthing some lime green batten wool in my supply closet. It had originally been intended for a member of The Misfits from “Jem and the Holograms” set I never got around to painting. Funny how one thing morphs into another in the game of babushkaring. I was asked to paint this nine-piece set of Beetlejuice just as I was about to bury my father so I was pleased to have this to look forward to when I return. I was also pleased that my idea of putting Lydia Deetz in her red wedding gown was okayed. The gown is reminiscent of a dress one of my friend’s bride had worn in a lavish Chinese banquet but of course, at the time, I didn’t have the heart to point that out to her. That wedding had been in Canada and my family had driven all the way up there to attend and had a blast. Painting this set had made me remember one of the many fun family trips we had embarked on and I was grateful to be able to reminisce about it fondly.

This set includes Beetlejuice, Lydia, Adam and Barbara, Delia Deetz, Otho, Charles Deetz, Juno, and an itty bitty Miss Argentina.

She’s only tiny, but I managed to squeeze her name into the sash because I had plenty of practice writing as tiny as I could when I was a kid…a skill my mom had claimed would amount to nothing. Boy, was she wrong on that front!

Bink and Olive

I’ve been getting a fair bit of requests from people wanting to commemorate their pets in doll form. At first I hadn’t wanted to do it because just the thought of these pets crossing the rainbow bridge made me so sad that I would tear up just looking at the photos sent to me. This was why I never went into taxidermy when I had an opportunity to do so. But then I thought, well, it’s for people who really love their animals and the little dolls I create can bring a little bit of solace so I went for it. After all, I AM surrounded by photos of my and my brother’s bullies and I haven’t burst into tears once (lately) when I look at them.

These are Bink and Olive, straight up Basset Hounds who just looked like they’re the best boy and girl in the world! I was a bit weepy at first but got over it.

I made a special blend of paint for Bink’s coloring which I am naming after him: Bink Black. It seemed like I’ve been naming my special blends after dogs I’ve painted. For instance, one of my blends is called Jett Black after a little black pug I painted some years before.

As with all my commemorative animal sets, there’s always a little Easter Egg surprise inside. This one is no exception!

Bink!

Olive!

 

 

 

I Dream of Jeannie

If I ever have the pleasure of being granted a wish, I’d ask for more time. And probably better eyesight. There is just not enough time in the day to do everything I want to do. I had experimented with cutting down sleep and replacing it with 20 minute naps 4 times a day. That didn’t work out too well. I was Zombie-Vampire Irene and had often caught myself sprinkling salt into my coffee. But I came to the realization that my circadian rhythm is vastly different from most people’s and it’s taken me that many years to realize that. It explains why I’m never fully alert until after dinner!

During one of my many late night working hours, I managed to cram in 15-45 minutes of fun painting time in which I’d work on some side projects. This was designed to keep myself interested in painting dolls day in and day out, because without some new and interesting challenges, I would have abandoned the babushka game a long time ago. I wasn’t allowed to watch TV growing up, but since I was also a latchkey kid, my brother and I would happily ignore the restriction by lunging for the TV as soon as we got home from school. Often, after a healthy dose of cartoons and my brother’s wandered off to do whatever big brothers do in the 80s, I’d continue to watch some old reruns of The Brady Bunch, Batman, Bewitched, and, of course, I Dream of Jeannie. I’d been feeling quite nostalgic these days and decided to tackle I Dream of Jeannie because it had always brought me so much happiness. I wanted to work the bottle in, but didn’t want it to be a mini version so the Hubs and I looked at some designs for Jeannie’s bottle and I found a fairly round doll to fashion it into one. The bottom bit wasn’t as wide as I had wanted, but it does keep the original nesting doll aesthetics!

It took several months and some tears of frustration to paint the bottle, largely because, at 3 AM and after a night of going through a heavy painting session, I wasn’t as sharp and with it as I would at 7 PM and kept making some glaringly obvious mistakes. But I would prevail after giving myself a good pep talk and put on some quirky TV shows and fix whatever boo boo I had made.

Painting Jeannie and Major Nelson wasn’t quite as hard, so I left it alone until the bottle was done and dusted. For Jeannie’s hair I had a very clear picture of what I wanted to do. The Hubs designed the fez hat for me with a hole in it so I could easily insert her pony tail through. I remember procuring an excellent facsimile of blonde hair that would do the trick, but I could not for the life of me find it! I tore my studio apart looking for it, only to remember two hours and a huge mess later that it was cast carelessly inside an easy-to-reach supply cabinet. Sheesh. In the end everything worked out and I was able to successfully finish the set without any more crying.

So here it is, a pure labor of love and some misery. Now, you will excuse me as I pull up a few episodes of this old favorite show of mine and sip some unsalted coffee.