Who's Your Daddy? Collaborative Dolls

What happens when 10 diverse artists customize 10 artistic elements on 10 one of a kind works of art? Presenting Who’s Your Daddy? Collaborative Dolls, featuring 10 absolutely wondrous dolls!

The amazing Who’s Your Daddy? Collaborative Dolls Exhibition opens Saturday, June 14, 2008, 6-8 pm and will be on display from June 14 – July 6, 2008. A lively and informative Gallery Talk will be held on Sunday, June 15 at 2:00 pm.

In order to appreciate the complexities of Who’s Your Daddy? one must first understand the collaborative process. A collaborative art project means tailoring one’s creativity to augment the other artists’ offerings. When the artistic vision involves multiple artists the creative possibilities expand exponentially, generating EXTRAORDINARY results!

In March 2007 the seed for Who's Your Daddy? germinated from a lunch date between artists Lynne Sward, Peggy Beardslee and colleague Elsa Wachs who wanted to do a fiber project together, and settled upon the idea of collaboration.

As the idea took wings, ten artists, working in diverse media, joined the collaboration; Lynne Sward/ mixed media, Peggy Beardslee/ mixed media, Elsa Wachs/ fiber, Ray Hershberger/ painter, Linda Gissen/ sculptor, Beverly Furman/ painter, Matthew Bernier/ puppeteer, Pamela Pine Winslow/ mixed media, and Barbara and Fred Mason/ jewelers.

A nine month timeline, appropriate for the birth of their creations, was established thanks to artist Ray Hershberger, who conceptualized the Who's Your Daddy? grid providing a monthly "round robin" time-line for each doll and which artist was responsible for creating which body part. The only rules: create after seeing the doll because the doll would "tell each artist what was needed".  And nothing could be changed or altered on each doll until each was returned to their rightful owner.

To get started each artist assembled a torso of his or her own chosen media and design. Beverly Furman’s doll, Willow, has armature made from flexible willow branches, and fashioned with cotton paper pulp and wood chips. Pamela Winslow drew upon her theater background to create her doll’s torso.

"I had resolved to spend a lot of time thinking about the design for my doll, but a persistent little spirit kept flitting and buzzing around my head, demanding my attention" said Winslow, "I finally gave up and created this pesky muse. It doesn't have a name...Free spirits don't have names. It is androgynous...Free spirits don't have genders."

Hand crafted journals accompanied each dolls journey from artist to artist, establishing the philosophy and personality of each in order to guide the other artists in their artistry. Monthly, the dolls were passed to the next designated artist to add head, face, arms, legs, feet, hands, hair, clothing or accessories. 

"As each package came to me, I eagerly unwrapped the doll, taking a quick look and then putting the doll away until I had a nice block of time to add my part. As an artist who is interested in craftsmanship and unity, I tried to ensure that whatever I added to each doll was coordinated in color and sensibility to the doll's persona," says Sward.

Each collaborative doll is layered with personality, rich with creative nuance and artistic technique. Artists sewed, sculpted, sawed, sanded, beaded, glued and painted to produce their vision. These intricacies give breath to each doll, telling the story of its journey and giving insight into each artist. One imaginative example, Hershberger, inspired by a doll's multi-cultural details, fashioned a Torah-like scroll for the doll’s face, which turns to unveil 53 alter egos.

"This doll project has afforded me the opportunity to work collaboratively with a group of incredibly talented, imaginative artists whose media and artistic visions go in very different directions from my own. It has been both delightful fun and a challenge to work within my own genre to create doll segments that fit within the conceptual vision of the doll’s originator," reflects Gissen.

GALLERY TALK
These ten amazing Collaborative Dolls are on display in the d’ART Center’s Decker Gallery from June 14 – July 6, 2008. Please join us for a lively Gallery Talk on Sunday, June 15, 2008 @ 2:00pm, admission is FREE.

Come see this amazing exhibtion and please bring a donation of a DOLL or TOY to benefit the ForKids program of Hampton Roads.

We appreciate the support of our media partner Tidewater Parent Magazine.

A special thanks to photographer Bob Postle from the d’ART Center.