This one is a portrait of the buyer's sister. She was a schoolteacher in Scotland, and is retiring this year. Her sister has built a miniature of her classroom as a gift for her, and had me make the portrait doll of her sister to put in it. The freaky thing is that the doll looks a lot like my mom.

This fellow just shipped out yesterday to a lady in California. She's the same one who ordered a bathtub cowboy from me earlier in the year. She asked for a 1920s "matinee idol guy, sort of like Clark Gable." I think he works. I cut up one of Jim's black dress shirts I filched out of the closet to make his tux. He'll never miss it.

Grace was sculpted using that weird "ethnic brown" Prosculpt. It's nasty. The color is very flat "tootsie roll" brown, leaving little room for variation in skin tone. It has a rather different texture than the light colored Prosculpt, and tends to stain my fingers, and everything else it gets on. But in spite of the stuff, I think Grace turned out ok. Next time I might mix the brown stuff with some lighter clay, just to knock it back a little and leave me room for some tonal variations. Always a learning experience, every one of them.

Lady Anne and Renatta

Madame Mae and Lady in Gold

Lady in Gold is still with me–she might get some tweaks before the next show. Pitti Sing and Fraulein Kost went too. Pitti Sing got sold to a woman who wanted to pose her kneeling, which made me cringe a little, but hey, I warned her about how fragile she is and not to mess with her hands. Kost sold to the same woman who bought Renatta the previous day. Lady Anne went on preview night to a woman who took Rik Pierce's "Fair Rosamond's Bower" class to put in the scene. The crowning glory was Mae, who went to a very discriminating collector who kept coming back over and over to look at her. She wanted ladies to put in a bordello scene she's building in an old Victrola case. I thought maybe my work wasn't up to her standards, so when she finally caved and bought her on the last day, I was elated.

Alas, it's always sad to let them go. I grieved a little as I wrapped each one and put them in their boxes, knowing I'd never see them again. It's like they're all part of me and it hurts a little. But it's great validation when someone is willing to cough up the cash for my work, and I'd rather have people enjoying them than have them collecting dust on a shelf in my studio.

At last, a show where I made money!

I was hoping to have another bathtub cowboy ready and the two mermaids, but alas, there's only so many hours in the weekend. The biker guy is no-where near ready, although I got a lot done on him at the REAF show. He may continue to be my WIP for Chicago.

I signed up for Molly Cromwell's Sturbridge show in June. Table's only $195, and I hear good things about the show. It's only a 5-6 hour drive too, unlike the Chicago 13-hour haul. Then I'm off for the summer–no more shows til IGMA in September.

I've also decided to wait on my Fellow application. There's just no way I'll be ready for that right after this show. I hate to wait another year, but I'd rather do that than send less-than-perfect pieces. I could send the one Tudor lady–she's spectacular, but I have a feeling she'll sell in Chicago. And I need 5 pieces to send… not sure any of the rest of them would measure up.

I've got two commissions to finish by May1, then I'm going to set a goal of one doll per week and try to stick to it through the summer so I have a nice full table for IGMA.

I've come to realize that a lot of miniature doll buyers really don't care if the doll is OOAK or not–they like the costume, the subject matter, whether it will work in their dollhouse or miniature scene, and so on. I've come a long way with my sculpting skills, but I'm so damned slow at it, I can't ever seem to get anything done.

I'm especially slow at hands. I've gotten rather good at making realistic hands, but have not been able to create a decent press mold from any of them, so I hauled off and bought an arm/hand mold from House of Caron. It works relatively well as a PC press mold, even though it's meant to be used for porcelain slip. I've also made a few press-molds from feet and boots that I've sculpted myself so I can kind of "mass-produce" those parts. That way, if the doll is more costume than sculpt, I can produce it faster. I'll still make custom stuff for dolls that need to have more specific poses to their hands and feet, but I won't have to start from scratch every time.

I think that once Chicago is over, I need to spend some time making parts that I can just grab and use when trying to quickly put together a fully costumed doll. And I've also got Dana's patterns so I don't have to figure out every single costume from scratch either.

Sometimes it's nice to just put together some ready-made parts and cut right to the costuming. I actually enjoyed putting together Dana's kit doll. I've always liked the costuming part better than the sculpting, but I've always hated the vacuous expressions and mannequin-like poses of commercial porcelains.

Cheating? I think not. It's not like I'm mass-producing carbon copies–each one is still unique. Just put together a little quicker…

I've pretty much decided that I'm not doing anything next year but IGMA and Chicago, and the Flower Show. I already told Bev I'd do FaerieCon with her this November, but I'm seriously thinking I should bag out on that one. There's no way we're ever going to sell anything there, or at any of these non-miniature shows. Just because you keep going back year after year does not mean that show-goers are going to suddenly see the light and buy your dolls. No matter how much we educate them on how they're made, no matter what we call them, (sculptures, figurative art, OOAK), to Joe Public, they're always going to be just DOLLS. And even our most reasonable price is too much in his eyes when you can get a nice mass-produced resin figurine or Barbie for 30 bucks at another vendor's table. And that's assuming Joe P even wants one in the first place.

Unless the buyer is a COLLECTOR, they don't CARE whether it's OOAK or mass-produced, and therefore the OOAK is just too expensive for a dust-collector.

Chicago and IGMA are two shows where collectors come looking for stuff like ours. They expect to pay several hundred bucks for an OOAK doll. Some of them will pay that much for non-unique porcelains made from commercial molds. Miniaturists generally buy OOAKs because it's something they can't find elsewhere, and they want it for a scene they're working on, or plan to work on. And sometimes they just fall in love with one of my dolls and buy it in spite of not having a scene for it. But most of the time, even THEY don't care if it's OOAK or commercially molded porcelain.

These "throwaway" shows are fun, but they take up a lot of time and cash. And just because I now have a bit of cash to work with, doesn't mean I should be tossing it on these shows that end up being more fun "social" events than actual selling venues. The time factor is crucial as well. I now only have two weekends left to get my few new WIPs done for Chicago, where I actually have a chance at selling some stuff.

I stood back and looked at my table this weekend and realized that several of my dolls are going on three years old and have been to several shows. I really need to sit down and finish my current WIPs and come up with some new stuff.

Today begins my 8th week back at the Big Bad Bank. So far, things are much better than my last tour here–I won't go into detail here–I save that for the private rant blog so I don't get busted blogging about work. It's gotten me in trouble before.

All that said, I need to quit posting so much in the "rant" blog and get back to posting the good stuff here.

FaerieCon was yet another wash. Proof yet again that Joe Public does not "get" the idea of OOAK dolls as art. I did the Art Museum show on the 12th of December, and to my shock, I sold the bubble fairy. By then I knew I had the bank job back, so I turned around and blew my profits on a new purse from the vendor next to me. I love it, and dammit, I deserved it.

So, after hitting rock-bottom financially, I'm back to raking in the cash at the bank. I'm also working my ass off for it, but that's ok. Things had gotten so tight while working at the GS, I actually broke down and applied for a night job at WaWa. I never heard from them, and just as well for three weeks later, I heard from the Bank.

I had a shot at a telecommuting job in Baltimore, which had me kind of excited, but alas, they hired someone else. No biggie, since I'd already said yes to the bank. I wonder if I have the self-discipline to work from home anyway–it would be just too tempting to go work on dolls and leave the real work till the last minute. I suppose I could do it if I had to–it would just be hard to resist the temptation and all the distractions. People have said to me "wouldn't you miss being around other people?" Fuck no. I LIKE being alone. I'm hardly the misanthrope that Jim is, but there's hardly anyone here I'd miss if I left.

I all but quit the Brandywine Harps. I blew off the last two Mini Club meetings. I may just bag the club altogether. I've had to let some things go in order to keep from overextending myself. The BHO was starting to get to me–too many concerts, way too many rehearsals, and I can't keep up with the music anyway. Janet is taking it in an almost professional direction, and I just can't go there with it. I still do the website, and I might do a couple of the fall concerts, but for now, I'm out. It's kind of a bummer, but I got so I was dreading every rehearsal and concert. It's nice to come home after work and know I don't have to be somewhere.

I've cleaned up my attitude toward work too. It makes all the difference in the world. I used to drag myself in here, hating every minute of it, dreading every day of it, feeling like a loser. Now I rejoice in the fact that we're not broke anymore, and am making a point of not blowing the money we make foolishly like I did before.

I've had to modify a few dreams too, but it brings them closer to being real. The log house has gone by the wayside, replaced by a small modular cape cod that I pray we'll be able to order by the end of the year. By then, we'll have money saved, bills paid off or at least down by half, and hopefully I'll still have a job at the bank.

I've made my cube more comfortable than before. I miss that fabulous office at the GS, but it was going away soon anyway with their impending move. So I'm making the best of it, and being grateful for being here every day of the week.

So here I am blogging on my lunchbreak, happy to be able to just sit by myself if I want. I'm hoping I can get them to hire me full-time by the time my 18 months are up here. I've seen other contract employees, good workers even, get let go and replaced just so the bank doesn't get in trouble for keeping contractors too long. Word on the rumor mill is it's 18 months and it's hire-em-or-fire-em, according to legal.

It's mostly good at the moment, and I can't complain.

Can't always remember them, but they involve me searching for things I can't find, realizing I forgot to wear any pants to work, trying to get someone to listen to me who can't even tell I'm there…stuff like that. But the last one really freaked me out. I was at Mom & Dad's house, as if I lived there now, and all the cats were outside baiting a huge rattlesnake. I couldn't get them to leave it alone. Then Ratt got bit on the paw and limped away, just as Jim came out to shoot the thing. He kept telling me he didn't see a snake anywhere, while I screamed "it's right by your feet, you idiot!" Then I woke up, all weirded out.
Sometimes I wonder if it's my conscience telling me I should get my lazy ass out of bed and be doing something productive like practicing harp or working in the studio.

I did get up this morning, and saw one of the most incredible sunrises we've had since we've been here.

No more sleeping in.