Doll Makers Know when their Cloth Dolls Come to Life

Every doll maker has a magical moment when she knows that her doll has come to life. I always feel like my cloth dolls are born once I attach their earrings to their ears. I think the reason my dolls feel like they have come to life for me is that unlike the doll’s ears--earrings are not a necessity—to the doll’s physical structure. Earrings are accessories that speak to the doll’s style and personality. She doesn’t need them she wants them.

As a doll maker, I love big ears that are prominent on my dolls faces because if I am going to go through the trouble to make them, I want to see them. I want them to be dominant and prominent so that people know that the doll’s ear size is not a mistake. She is not a mistake and that we all don't need to look alike or think alike to validate and respect each other's truth.

 

Toy companies that manufacture dolls, go out of their way to make small features on the doll’s head, with the exception of the doll’s eyes. In fact, they exaggerate the size of the doll’s eyes in proportion to the rest of her face. The plastic fashion doll’s eyes are the biggest feature on her face because they hypnotize the little girl into believing all of the sweet little lies the world wants her to believe about womanhood, femininity, and beauty.

This standard of unobtainable beauty that is perpetuated by plastic doll makers contributes to the beauty industries 445 billion dollar industry. When a little girl is given a doll, she has not yet developed a self-identity imbued with her own dreams, values, and sense of beauty. The doll plays with the little girl inside of her imagination where she is most vulnerable, susceptible, and impressionable of who she is supposed be; how she is supposed to act; and how she is supposed to see the world through the doll’s eyes.

One day the little girl looks at herself in the mirror and asks her doll, “ Do you think I am beautiful like you?”  The fashion doll gives the little a girl a blank stare that reaches to the core of her being and says, “Of course not. Your lips are not like mine. Your nose is too big. Your eyes are too small. You are too fat. Your hair is not shiny. You are too short. And one day you are going to want to get plastic surgery to increase the size of your breasts.”

The little girl spends the majority of her youth trying to live up to her doll’s ideal of beauty—never feeling quite good enough…beautiful enough…or even alive enough…just like her doll.

To be alive to me means to be beautifully imperfect, like nature. Freckles, wrinkles, cellulite, potbellies, and gaps in our teeth are the characteristics that make us uniquely human. I think the reason, I love making cloth dolls, in the second half-a-century of my life, is because I spent the first have of my live, trying to fit into society’s expectations and standards of beauty—and now I want to experience what it is like to feel perfectly flawed and, imperfectly beautiful with big ears and all.

By, Cassandra George Sturges

How to Make a Doll – Black Handmade Doll Nose Tutorial

When I say, “I am a doll maker” it feels empty, half-hearted, and superficial. I am not just a doll maker; I am an African American Doll Maker. I am a Black Doll Maker. I need to tell you why this label is so important to me. I grew up in the mid -1960s and early 1970’s primarily playing with White dolls envying their tiny noses, blue eyes, and long straight hair. Even though James Brown sang, “I am Black and I am Proud,” most African Americans knew that this was an affirmation that every Black American wanted to be true. We sang and we chanted, “I am Black and I am proud say it out loud,”-- although we didn’t believe it—but my God-- we wanted to believe it. We wanted this to be true, while we permed our heads bald.

 Michael Jackson had supernatural talent as a singer, dancer, and performer—yet he did everything he could to downsize his broad, African featured Black nose. As a kid, we made fun of other Black kids who had what we called big noses—myself included. Growing up in a culture where I have been socialized to hate my African heritage, and severed psychologically from my ancestor’s roots has altered my consciousness as a human being. Learning how to make dolls is my way of healing my psyche and putting back the pieces of my broken soul.

 When I first started making cloth dolls, I combed the Internet and bought every cloth doll making book, I could find to help me create a cloth doll pattern that reflected my culture. As a child, I did not have the cognitive ability to understand race, culture, and ethnicity. I simply played with White dolls that did not resemble me or the people in my family or community. As a fifty-something-old Black Woman—my soul will not allow me to dismiss, ignore, and minimize the spiritual, psychological, and physical experience of being a Black woman in a world dominated by White people.

It was very, very, very important to me—to figure out how to sculpt a broad, African, featured nose for my black handmade cloth dolls to honor my ancestors, and to heal the little girl inside of me—who wanted to be anything but Black. I begged my daddy to paint me White when I was a little girl—and he cried and asked me why. And I said, “Daddy, can’t you see that everybody hate Black people.” I was  5 or 6 years old at the time.

I hope no one is offended by this—but I think one of the biggest lessons that I have learned in this Dark Brown Earth Suit is that it is not White people’s responsibility to make Black dolls that reflect the African American experience. It would be like asking an elephant to help squirrels cross the street.  A doll is always more than a plaything—it is a representation of a version of reality that conditions the imagination to accept and ultimately act out—it’s creator’s truth.

This YouTube video on How to sculpt a cloth doll’s nose is 35 minutes long—because it took years for me to figure out how to make my doll’s nose look Afrocentric, broad, and beautiful like Oprah Winfrey’s Serena William’s, and the comedienne Monique. I wanted to do my best and take my time sharing this doll making technique on how to make African American handmade cloth doll noses for other people like me. This is also my apology and atonement for making fun of all of the Black people whom I criticized for having Afrocentric features.

For the complete doll pattern visit my Authentik Beauty Magazine Website