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.

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.