Portfolio > Dolls

Dress of Ashes
Oil on canvas
18” x 24”
Fiery Dress
Oil on canvas
18” x 24”
2018
Darkling Dress
Oil on canvas
18” x 24”
2018
Tiny Garments
oil on canvas
18" x 24"
Red Baby
oil on canvas
18" x 24"
Blue Baby
oil on canvas
18" x 24"
2015
Dots
oil on canvas
16" x 20"
2015
Black Rick Rack
oil on canvas
16" x 20"
Cloak
oil on canvas
18" x 24"
Mohair and Cotton
oil on canvas
16" x 20"
2015
Brown Tweed
oil on canvas
18" x 24"
Black Jet Buttons
oil on canvas
20" x 16"
Pink and Blue
oil on canvas
60" x 72"
Puce
oil on canvas
60" x 72"

These paintings are based on paper doll clothes I made as a child, garments I wore as a baby, and the doll clothes that my grandmother made for my sister and I. She knitted, crocheted, embroidered, cut and stitched each piece, carefully wrapped them in tissue paper, and sent the box from her house in Minnesota to our farm in Michigan. Each year at Christmas we would open a wonderland of carefully-composed beauty. Our grandma didn’t believe in wearing a lot of dark colors. She loved bright hues, and our doll clothes were pieces of her wardrobe in vivid greens, reds, pinks, yellows, aquas. Our tiniest dolls enjoyed hand-knit sweaters and embroidered pillowcases for their beds. I carried scraps of memories of certain colors, outfits, a particular fabric or button, for many years until they became paintings.