Virginie Ropars- Art Dolls

www.gothicteasociety.com

Beautiful!

These dark & beautiful dolls are made by artist Virginie Ropars. You can see more of her work and buy her dolls HERE. Join her Facebook HERE

Doll House

The Gothic Tea Society www.gothicteasociety.com

Dollmakers- The Doll Show

I am really going to try and go by here before April 5th.

Here is an article about the show from the Eagle Rock Patch

The Gallery of the Dolls (Move Over American Girl)
A doll-themed art show opens at Cactus Gallery—from Goth to Mexican folk art, there's enough doll power on display to make Barbie tremble.
By Philipp Sander 

Usually, the place to find dolls is children's bedrooms, and perhaps the corresponding aisle at Toys 'R' Us. Throughout the remainder of March and until April 5, however, Eagle Rock’s Cactus Gallery is a pretty sure bet, too.

Celebrating its sixth birthday, the gallery opened a new show, titled “Dollmakers,” on Saturday, featuring 26 artists from all over the Golden State and more than 200 pieces of their art. The event coincided with NELAart’s monthly Second Saturday Gallery Night.

For an art gallery that specializes in multimedia, painting and sculpture, it might seem a little unusual to put on a show themed around dolls. But as Sandra Mastroianni, the owner of Cactus Gallery, put it: “It just was time to do a doll show.”

The dolls certainly struck a nerve with visitors. The small gallery was packed with artists, art lovers and Eagle Rockers, who gazed in awe at the wide range of doll styles on display while a duo of musicians, Tom Page and 5 Track, on double bass and guitar, respectively, jammed in front of the store. (Check out the photo section.)

Several artists injected a Gothic look in their dolls, giving them white, porcelain-like faces, gaunt eyes and Victorian-era clothing, all of which echoed the Victorian practice of using deceased infants' skeletons for doll-making.

For Sheri DeBow, whose dolls were eerily reminiscent of Helena Bonham-Carter's appearance in the Harry Potter series and in Sweeney Todd (although the likeness is surely coincidental), working with dolls isn’t very different from parenting—and without any of the labors of motherhood.

“After having five kids, I still can create things without having to be pregnant anymore,” she said. Creating dolls can also be a form of self-expression, as one of her pieces, titled “Annie Droid, do what you are told,” makes clear. It reflects her “wearing the mom hat, wearing the wife hat, but also being myself,” as DeBow put it. Her dolls are also inspired by the lives of her children. For example, one of her pieces, “The princess of the palace runs away from home,” revolves around the emotional problems that her daughter faced during DeBow's divorce.

Some artists chose to work only with cloth, sowing modern stuffed figures in pop-art colors. Also well represented were artists who were inspired by Mexican folk art, presenting giant mosaic-decorated clay skulls and Día de los Muertos figurines. Another unusual sight: Claymation animator Edgar Alvarez created studies of homeless persons, complete with shopping carts filled with eclectic items, thereby shining a light on an often-forgotten group in our society.

Clearly, dolls mean different things to different people. “Dolls can be creepy and they can be happy—I try to show both aspects in my work,” said one artist who goes by the name Bastet 2329 and whose Victorian dolls are one of the highlights of the show. Asked why she works with dolls—she also is a painter—she answered, with a smile: “I get to play with dolls all day. Isn't that every girl's dream?”

Dollmakers runs until April 5 at Cactus Gallery and Gifts, 4536 Eagle Rock Blvd. Tues-Sat: 11a.m.-6 p.m. Sun-Mon: by appointment.

Macabre Noir- Bridge City Bombshells- The Doll-Y

Halloween 2010

Gothic Dolls- Ashton Drake

Both of these collectable dolls are from Ashton Drake. You can find details and how to order them HERE

Doll Decay

Robert the Haunted Doll

Its not that unusual for a young child to have an imaginary friend or two. Often times parents think it cute? A mischievous little friend a foot to take the blame for some minor wrong doings.

In fact there are parents' that will claim a good imagination is healthy,

but what happens when the child begins to be tormented by the imaginary friend? To the point that the child can't sleep the night through without the friend awaking them to play? What happens when the play becomes ruff and frightening to the child?

So it goes this is the story of Robert...

The story begins in the home of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Otto, the year 1896. It was well known that the Otto's mistreated there servant's, and were not the kindest of people.

One particular servant, that aided in the care of the couples son "Robert Eugene" (Gene) was said to be versed in the ways of voodoo. As the story goes the servant gave young Gene a doll. The doll stood three feet tall, and was stuffed with straw. The servant gave the doll life like features, that at first were very endearing to young Gene.

Gene decided to name the doll Robert. The doll became a constant companion to the little boy. Its said that the Otto's often heard Gene upstairs talking to the doll. This in itself might not have been so bad? What unsettled and puzzled the Otto's was hearing their son answering himself in an entirely different voice

than his own?

Many Strange things began to occur in the Otto household. Frequently Neighbors' claimed to see Robert move about from window to window, when the family was out of the house. Gene began to blame Robert for mishaps that would occur. The Otto's claimed to hear thedoll giggle, and swear they caught glimpses of the doll running about the house.

Gene began to have nightmare's, and scream out in the night. When his parents would respond to Gene's cries, they often found furniture over turned, and their child in a fright. As a rule they would find Robert thedoll at the foot of their sons bed - with his glaring gaze on his face! With Gene shouting,"Robert Did It"....

The doll was eventually put up in the attic. Where he resided for many years.

When Gene's father died, and the Otto home was willed to Gene.

Gene decided that he and his new wife would move into his childhood home. He had become an artist in his adult life, and felt the larger home would provide him and his wife a spacious place to live, plus the large turret room on the second floor would make a great studio for his painting.

After moving back to his boyhood home It wasn't long before Gene discovered Robert in the attic. He promptly moved him down to the turret room. Robert's hold on Gene was strong, and from the moment Gene again laid eye's on him, Robert's influence could be felt in the house. Gene's wife found Robert very odd and unsettling. One day while Gene was out of the house she decided she had enough of Robert's glare...and returned him to his attic sanctuary.

When Gene returned home, and found that the doll had been moved, he was displeased. He declared that Robert needed a room of his own where he could see out of a window. He hurriedly returned Robert to the turret room. It wasn't long after that Gene's wife began to question her husbands sanity ?

The citizens' of Key West began to spread rumors about Robert and his evil doings. Many people told stories of seeing and hearing Robert the doll in the turret room as they walked by the home. They claimed that Robert would mock them as they passed... School children feared walking by the Otto home , in fear of Robert's mean glare from the window above.

Gene, himself reported when visiting the turret room on occasion he would find Robert in the rocking chair by the window rocking, and complaining of his displeasure with his accommodations...

Finally Gene himself had enough of Robert's antics, and put him back in the attic. Visitors to the Otto's home would often comment on hearing something walking back and forth in the attic, along with strange giggling sounds. Guests'' no longer wanted to visit the home.

Gene Otto died in 1972, and his wife sold the home promptly - leaving Robert the doll behind in the attic.

A new family now lived in the home, and the stories of Robert died down...

Robert waited patiently up in the attic to be discovered once again. The Ten year old daughter of the new owners was quick to find Robert in the attic, and added him to her other toy's in her bedroom. It was not long before Robert unleashed his displeasure on the child... The little girl began screaming out in the night,claiming that thedoll moved about the room, and would climb on her bed and attack her as she tried to sleep. Even after more than thirty years later, she steadfastly claims that " thedoll was alive and wanted to kill her."

Robert, still dressed in his white sailor suit and clutching his stuffed lion lives comfortably, though well guarded in Key West at the Martello Museum. Employs at the museum continue to give accounts of Robert being up to his old tricks still today...

By Sharon Stajda

According to another person- The servant was dismissed

from the Otto household because Mrs. Otto spotted the 4 servants in the

backyard doing some form of what she thought to be black magic. Robert

(the little boy) did not go by the name Gene, he was called

"Robert". He only started going by Gene when one day his mother scolded

him using his name, and he told her that his name was not Robert, the

doll's name was Robert, and his name was Gene. According to several

residents of Key West (not me, I don't know whether this part is true) the

government did acknowledge Robert (the doll) and actually granted the

doll property rights.

Also, the servant who made the doll used Gene's hair for the doll. It's

a known fact that once a person's hair is cut it can't change colors

(of course!), however, the doll's hair is now white. If you choose to

visit Robert in the museum and want to take a picture you need to ask

politely and do NOT make fun of the doll! If he allows you to take a

picture he will tilt his head to the side, if he does not tilt his head and

you take a picture anyway bad things happen to not only you but to

anyone you were with or family members. The walls in that room of the

museum are covered in letters from people asking Robert to please take the

curse off, and apologizing for making fun of him.

The Creepy Dolls are Coming!

The Creepy Dolls ( yes the very same ones that I am so fond of) will be on display and for sale at Cactus Gallery and Gifts here in Los Angeles. Don't miss this chance to see and purchase a Creepy Doll or other original art from L.A. Artists. You can learn more about the Gallery HERE
You can also Contact Christie or Bastet 2329 directly HERE

Macabre Dolls

I really like this artist's work!

Beth Robinson's Strange Dolls

You know you want one...or two. Hell, make it three! 

Click HERE to see more.

Pretty Little Dolls

...from a series I call The Afterworld Slide Show

Hot Air Balloons

The hot air balloon is the oldest successful human-carrying flight technology and is a subset of balloon aircraft. On November 21, 1783, in Paris, France, the first manned flight was made by Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and François Laurent d'Arlandes in a hot air balloon created by the Montgolfier brothers. Recently, balloon envelopes have been made in all kinds of shapes, such as hot dogs, rocket ships, and the shapes of commercial products. Hot air balloons that can be propelled through the air rather than just being pushed along by the wind are known as airships or, more specifically, thermal airships.



A hot air balloon consists of a bag called the envelope that is capable of containing heated air. Suspended beneath is the gondola or wicker basket (in some long-distance or high-altitude balloons, a capsule) which carries the passengers and (usually) a source of heat, usually an open flame. The heated air inside the envelope makes it buoyant since it has a lower density than the relatively cold air outside the envelope. Unlike gas balloons, the envelope does not have to be sealed at the bottom since the air near the bottom of the envelope is at the same pressure as the surrounding air. In today's sport balloons the envelope is generally made from nylon fabric and the mouth of the balloon (closest to the burner flame) is made from fire resistant material such as Nomex.



Unmanned hot air balloons are popular in Chinese history. Zhuge Liang of the Shu Han kingdom, in the Three Kingdoms era (220–80 AD) used airborne lanterns for military signaling. These lanterns are known as Kongming lanterns (孔明灯). There is also some speculation that hot air balloons could have been used by people of the Nazca culture of Peru some 1500 years ago, as a tool for designing the famous Nazca ground figures and lines. The first documented balloon flight in Europe was by the Portuguese priest Bartolomeu de Gusmão. On August 8, 1709, in Lisbon, Bartolomeu de Gusmão managed to lift a small balloon made of paper full of hot air about 4 meters in front of king John V and the Portuguese court.


The first clearly recorded instance of a balloon carrying passengers used hot air to generate buoyancy and was built by the brothers Joseph-Michel and Jacques-Etienne Montgolfier in Annonay, France. After experimenting with unmanned balloons and flights with animals, the first tethered balloon flight with humans on board took place on October 19, 1783 with the scientist Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier, the manufacture manager, Jean-Baptiste Réveillon and Giroud de Villette, at the Folie Titon in Paris. The first free flight with human passengers was on November 21, 1783. King Louis XVI had originally decreed that condemned criminals would be the first pilots, but de Rozier, along with Marquis Francois d'Arlandes, successfully petitioned for the honor.

Modern hot air balloons, with an onboard heat source, were pioneered by Ed Yost, beginning in the 1950s; his work resulted in his first successful flight, on October 22, 1960. The first modern-day hot air balloon to be built in the United Kingdom (UK) was the Bristol Belle in 1967. Today, hot air balloons are used primarily for recreation.
Hot air balloons are able to fly to extremely high altitudes. On November 26, 2005, Vijaypat Singhania set the world altitude record for highest hot air balloon flight, reaching 21,027 meters (68,986 feet). He took off from downtown Bombay, India, and landed 240 kilometers (149 miles) south in Panchale.[10] The previous record of 19,811 m (64,997 ft) had been set by Per Lindstrand on June 6, 1988 in Plano, Texas. As with all unpressurized aircraft, oxygen is needed for all crew and passengers on any flight that exceeds an altitude of about 15,000 ft (4,572 m).

On January 15, 1991, the Virgin Pacific Flyer balloon completed the longest flight in a hot air balloon when Per Lindstrand (born in Sweden, but resident in the UK) and Richard Branson of the UK flew 7,671.91 km (4,767.10 mi) from Japan to Northern Canada. With a volume of 74 thousand cubic meters (2.6 million cubic feet), the balloon envelope was the largest ever built for a hot air craft. Designed to fly in the trans-oceanic jet streams the Pacific Flyer recorded the highest ground speed for a manned balloon at 245 mph (394 km/h). The longest duration hot air balloon flight ever made is 50 hours and 38 minutes made by Michio Kanda and Hirosuke Tekezawa of Japan on January 2, 1997

The Lamp ~ 1959

This was actually sent to me by a MySpace friend- I liked it so much wanted to share!. Here is a brief synopsis from IMDB.
waning winter light, a doll maker works in his shop, a kerosene lamp beside him, a jumble of dolls and doll parts, whole and broken, surrounding him. There are noises, too: a cuckoo clock chirps the workday's end. The artisan completes a repair and leaves, shuttering the shop from outside. Back inside, whispering begins. What else is in store for the shop's seemingly lifeless denizens? Written and Directed by Roman Polanski

Creepy Doll Exhibit!

The Creepy dolls are on exhibit ( and for sale!) at the Chaos Gallery adjacent to the Museum of Death in Los Angeles. I have several of these dolls and she keeps making more that I just must have! See the website at the Creepy Dolls link to your right.

Mummy Dolls

Look at these amazing mummy dolls by artist Shain Erin. You can visit the website HERE

There are also Zombie, Skeleton and Strange Born dolls- and an Etsy store! I hope to get one for my doll collection.

Misemono

These dolls are thought to be part of a 'Misemono' side show. Misemono literally means "shows" or "exhibits" and were an inalienable part of the Japanese urban landscape during the edo period. Many of the shows were briefly put on and were characterized by their crudeness. The term misemono dates from the Edo period, although plausible forerunners of the performances appear already in the late medieval period. Among the likely antecedents of Edo period shows were benefit performances undertaken to raise funds for shines or temples. The shows were unhampered by attempts to conform to a traditional artists type and thus provide a valuable index to evolving popular taste.





In the 18th and 19th centuries, sideshow carnivals known as misemono were a popular form of entertainment for the sophisticated residents of Edo (present-day Tokyo). The sideshows featured a myriad of educational and entertaining attractions designed to evoke a sense of wonder and satisfy a deep curiosity for the mysteries of life. One popular attraction was the pregnant doll. Although it is commonly believed that these dolls were created primarily to teach midwives how to deliver babies, evidence suggests they were also used for entertainment purposes. Records from 1864 describe a popular show in Tokyo’s Asakusa entertainment district that educated audiences about the human body. The show featured a pregnant doll whose abdomen could be opened to reveal fetal models depicting the various stages of prenatal development.

Marionettes

Puppetry is an ancient form of performance. Some historians claim that they pre-date actors in theatre. There is evidence that they were used in Egypt as early as 2000 BC when string-operated figures of wood were manipulated to perform the action of kneading bread, and other string controlled objects. Wire controlled, articulated puppets made of clay and ivory have been found in Egyptian tombs. Marionette puppetry was used to display rituals and ceremonies using these string-operated figurines back in ancient times and is used today.


Though the Greeks left few physical examples of puppets, their literature suggests that puppetry was important. The oldest written record on puppetry can be found in the writings of Xenephon dating from around 422 BC. The Greek word usually translated as "puppets" is neurospasta, which means "string-pulling", from nervus, meaning either sinew, tendon, muscle, string, or wire, and span, to pull. Aristotle compared pulling strings to control heads, hands and eyes, shoulders and legs. Archimedes is known to have worked with marionettes. Plato's work is full of references to puppeteering. The 'Iliad' and the 'Odyssey' were presented using puppetry. Herodotus wrote that during festivals to honour Osiris, female priests carried statues which had moving arms activated by strings.




In ancient Greece and Rome clay and ivory dolls, dated from around 500 BC, were found in children's tombs. These dolls had articulated arms and legs, some of which had an iron rod extending up from the tops of their heads. This rod was used to manipulate the doll from above, exactly as is done today in Sicilian puppetry. A few of these dolls had strings in place of the rods. Some authorities believe these ancient figures were mere toys and not puppets due to their small size.
The Indian word sutradhara refers to the show-manager of theatrical performances (or a puppet-player), and also means literally "string-puller" or "string-holder".





A marionette is a puppet controlled from above using strings; a marionette's puppeteer is called a manipulator. Marionettes are operated with the puppeteer hidden or revealed to an audience by using a vertical or horizontal control bar in different forms of theatres or entertainment venues. Italy is considered by many to be the early home of the marionette thanks to the influence of Roman puppetry. Xenophon and Plutarch refer to them. The Christian church used marionettes to perform morality plays. It is believed that the term marionette emerged around 1600. It is a word connected with the Virgin Mary, hence the word 'marionette' or 'Mary doll'. Comedy sneaked into the plays as time went by and ultimately led to an edict banning puppetry from the church. Puppeteers responded by setting up stages outside cathedrals and became ever more ribald and slapstick. Out of this grew the Italian comedy called commedia dell'arte. Puppets were used at times in this form of theatre. Sometimes Shakespeare's plays were performed using marionettes instead of actors. The sides of donkey carts are decorated with intricate, painted scenes from the Frankish romantic poems, such as The Song of Roland; these same tales are enacted in traditional puppet theatres featuring hand-made marionettes of wood, this art is called Opira dî pupi (Opera of the puppets) in Sicilian. The opera of the puppets and the Sicilian tradition of cantastorî (sing stories) are rooted in the Provençal troubadour tradition in Sicily during the reign of Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor, in the first half of the 13th century. A great place to see this marionette art is the puppet theatres of Palermo, Sicily.

Spanish Moss Effigies

Spanish moss is a common sight in parts of the South, where it festoons ancient trees with it's trailing, greyish growths.As a magical herb, this eerie-looking plant has contradictory uses: A few claim that it enhances money drawing charms, but most root workers will tell you that it is a powerful jinxing ingredient for use in evil work, for wich purpose it is added to War Water. Everyone agrees that it is the best all-purpose filling for a doll intended to represent another person, no matter whether the doll is used for good or evil works.

The cloth dolls are stuffed with Spanish moss and a blend of three or seven love herbs or destruction herbs (depending on the purpose of the doll), then the hair of the victim is sewn within the dolls head...one of the easiest and most potent effigies one can make :)

Some love drawing herbs, roots and minerals to add to spanish moss when stuffing dolls:

Adam and Eve Root,

Apple, Lavender,

Blood Root, Mint,

Cowrie Shells, Orange,

Damiana, Passion Flower,

Knot Weed, Sweetners

Stuffings For Destruction:

Black Pepper, Needles,

Blueberry ,Personal Concerns,

Datura Seeds, Salt,

Graveyard Dirt, Vetiver

Creepy Dolls