Johnson Antonio

This post is part of an occasional series about artists who don't have much presence on the internet.  Johnson Antonio is a Navajo artist (born 1931) who began carving figures after he retired from working on the railroad around 1980.  He calls his carvings "dolls" and they depict real people.  They aren't traditional Navajo carvings.  He uses found materials and watercolor paints.  He lives in a remote area of New Mexico with his family.  He is apparently well known to collectors of naive folk art carving.  He does not have a web site.  His work is available for purchase from several sites.  I encountered his work and the above photo while virtually visiting the Smithsonian Institute.  

Learning from Photographs

When I see photos of my work I somehow see the work differently.  Its a fresh perspective that sometimes is helpful.  This happened recently when I had a series of shadow boxes photographed.  I liked the contents but the boxes looked shabby.  So shabby that I cropped away the boxes from the photos. 

 Yesterday I built a new shadowbox to accommodate this work. There are a lot of decisions left about how to finish the piece.  But my gut tells me it is much improved. 

The most challenging thing about making this box was becoming reacquired with using a router.  There were  several routers that I could have worked with but I choose the one that was most familiar to me.  It's been over a decade since I used a router.  It was scarey.  I had to finish building the router table.  I had to remember how to use the jigs.  I had to change a bit that hadn't been changed in years.  But I did all that and it feels good.  Now I'm ready to try the other routers. 

In other parts of the shop Beth Rogers oiled the pieces of her lovingly made trestle table.

Elaine Fuller painted some details on the tale that I made a few weeks ago.  

Portfolio

Tom Henkel took photos of the dolls I am currently making.  It took a while to get the images from him but they have finally arrived. The first two characters are from a series of busts made from lamp parts and traditional doll making techniques. 

The girl on the scooter is the same scale and is about three feet tall.

Clay Day

Star Gazer and old woman by Chris Fondi

Victor is frightened by noises  by Joyce Compton

Yesterday, Chris Fondi, Joyce Compton and I spent the day making doll heads from paper clay and tarlatan fabric.  We also spent some time discussing the artist's statements, brief bios and resumes that we are working on for our portfolios.  It was a fun and productive day. 

I found myself exploring a recurring theme in my work: bird people. 

Photographing Art Dolls

Yesterday my art doll collective (Chris Fondi, Joyce Compton & I) met all day to work on our portfolios.  Much of the day was spent preparing dolls for the photo shoot.  When the dolls were finally ready we set up the photo stage. It consists of a small seamless backdrop, an ironing board, two color balanced lights with reflector umbrellas and a tripod.  It doesn't take up much space when we aren't using it. The excellent photographer we had arranged to take photos of our dolls with a high quality camera did not arrive.  Joyce and I decided to have a go at taking our own photos with our point and shoot cameras.

 

In the photo below Joyce is setting up a shot of one of her dolls.

I'm working on a series of dolls that are busts.  This is a departure from my previous work.  The heads are larger and the proportions of the piece must include consideration of the supporting assemblage structures. I found that the photos help me see the proportions and details of my work with a fresh eye.   There is something about photographs that lets me see my own work critically.

I like this detail shot above because it shows personality and subtlety in the face.  The character has a dynamic gaze,  But in the photo of the entire bust below the face is washed out and dull.  I either have to improve my ability to manipulate the lighting or I must make dolls with more strongly defined detail in the faces.  I also realize after looking at this photo that the collar is simply not big or dynamic enough. This doll is not as close to being finished as I thought he was.  That's OK.  I like to push a design.

This is another doll in the bust series.  This detail shot is less successful than the previous one.  I think the eyes need to be further developed with needle sculpting and the application of eye lids for the doll to have a purposeful gaze.  The interesting thing (at least to me) is that I didn't pick up on this just by looking at the doll.

 I can say exactly the same things about the relationship of this doll's head to the supporting assemblage structure that I did about the previous doll. 

 This impish doll is also a work in progress.  The detail shot looks great. But  I'm not even going to show you the supporting assemblage structure until I rebuild it. 

Finally, there was a photograph that I was really satisfied with at the end of the day.  This is a doll that I made while working through my feelings about my sister's death. This is the first photo that I feel accurately expresses both the detail and the feeling of the doll. I will include it in my portfolio. 

The intention of the day was to generate a lot of photographs for our portfolios.  I didn't end up with a lot of usable photographs but I did find direction for my bust dolls.  I consider the day a success.

Professional Art Doll Portfolios

Lately my art doll collective (Joyce Compton, Chris Fondi & myself) has been working on assembling professional portfolios of each member's dolls.  The short term goal is to prepare us to respond to calls for entries for juried exhibitions both individually and collectively.  The long term goal of the portfolio project is to book an exhibit for the group.

Each portfolio will contain high resolution photographs, an artist's resume or curriculum vitae, a brief bio of the artist and an artist's statement.  We will each make a hard copy and an electronic version of our portfolio.  We have acquired folios for the hard copy versions and have yet to figure out how to handle the electronic ones.  The biggest question is whether or not we will have them hosted on the Internet as an e portfolio.  There are a number of sites that claim to do this for free.   Artist Listing,  Mosaic Globe, VoodooChile, etc.  It's a lot to think about.

This Sunday we are bringing in a professional to photograph our dolls.  We are on a bit of a push to get things ready for the photo shoot.  It helps that we are making representational portfolios and not comprehensive ones.  We want to have between five and ten pieces of work well displayed in each portfolio.

We have also been giving each other feedback on our artist's statements, brief bios and resumes.  My new artist statement is not quite ready to replace the old one posted above.

Assemblage Doll

I have finally finished the assemblage doll I began at the AFIC doll making conference in April.  The project began with the discovery of an old tool box in my attic.  It was signed by my great grandfather George Eckel. He survived a harrowing ocean crossing and shipwreck during his first year of life (1832).  He was a tin smith in the family tradition.  I wanted to do something to honor him and the Eckel history of making objects. 

Tool box after the clean up.

Sketch for the project

Torso in progress

I liked the instructor Susie McMahon.  She taught techniques for using paper clay & let us follow our muses.

Finished project.

More AFIC Doll Photos

First some of the dolls that won ribbons.  If you can identify any of these artists please send me their names.

3rd place pattern interpretation.

Denise Dodd's pattern interpretation "Blu" wins the Blue

Leslie Wright won the People's Choice award with her doll "Gwen Ellyn"

This is my ribbon.  2nd place original design.  I never did wash Leaf Kicker's feet.

Some of the other dolls from the exhibit hall.

Cyndy Seiving

Cecily by Joyce Compton

Chris Fondi's Wish Doctors

Some dolls in progress from the classes.

"Coming Out of Her Shell" by Tracey Baldwin. 

A beautiful sculpt

Leafkicker gets some Personality

Leafkicker has a past.  He began as a challenge from two friends to make a doll from a couple axes.  (Not sure why I had axes laying around in my basement.)  It's taken a while to figure him out.  His trunk armature is made from 2x4s.  The trunk surface is basket woven cloth.  The arms are aluminum armature wire with very long tubes of fabric scrunched onto them.  Leafkicker has had proportion problems.  This is his third head and second set of hands.  Enough already, I want to get on to sculpting the head and putting some hair on that head!  I'm really enjoying the emerging "know it all" personality.  I will force him to wash his feet before he goes out into public.

Lillian and Her Scooter

This doll has been a couple years in the making.  She is finally nearing completion.  At 3" tall she is one of the largest dolls I've made.  She can stand without support if conditions are just right.  I gave myself the challenge of making her a piece of context that would help her stand and begin to tell a story.  The scooter was fun to make and it is an effective doll stand.  It also gives Lillian the occupation of scooting.  Fun!

Windblown - Assemblage Cage Doll

This doll caught me by surprise.  I was playing with the idea of a cage doll.  It's built from an antique game board and doll dress that I inherited from family members, bamboo skewers, candles and wood bits.  It has something to do with the danger and the gift of our passions.  Clearly it is a shrine about potential energy, spark and revelation. That is what surprised me.  I wasn't thinking about making a shrine or fire.  I was thinking about how cages and fences keep things in or out.  This doll will probably have one more round of revision before it's finished.  I need to figure out what is contained in the cage.  And I would like to know more about who this doll is.

Leroy's Elizabethan Collar

I've been traveling lately so I've had opportunity to crochet Leroy an Elizabethan collar.  I find that I can crochet while flying or riding in a car.  This collar has used up an entire ball of crochet thread and it is just now getting some volume.  One more weekend trip and it will be finished. 

The Stockinetttes

The Stockinets are a series of dolls that I made to explore the range of what I could do with aluminum armature wire and stockinette knit fabric for the doll skin.  I gave myself some rules.  All the dolls had to have the similar armatures.  The "skin" of the doll had to be made from and defined by a stuffed and sewn stockinette form.  All of the dolls had to be free standing.  I gave myself complete freedom of design for the head, hair and costuming.  This project took me a year and a half.  It was SO MUCH FUN and I learned a lot.  Have a look....

Mrs.Winters

Jo Ellen

Aging Rock Star

Big Hair & Mohair

Cirque

Bernardo

eleanor

Archimedes

Mr. Mischief