Go Ask Alice.....

I LOVE Alice. Always have, always will.

I love that sneaky kitty of hers too.

So I made one. Actually, the Cheshire Cat was made a couple of years ago for an IOLCC Dimensions In Dollmaking show. He was made to taunt my adult Alice Liddell that her youth was far behind her, could never get those Wonderland days back, and the clock keeps ticking.

But I ravaged that Alice and remade her into poor recluse Emily Dickinson, and poor Cheshire Cat was stuffed into a drawer. I couldn't bear to toss him. Thank you Johnny Depp, for giving me an idea with which to revive poor Chessy and give him a new victim to taunt.

So, here's my new Alice, young, clueless and completely innappropriately attired for crawling down rabbit holes. Her mother will have her head for dirtying that dress.

And the sneaky Cheshire Cat is enjoying every moment of imagining Alice choosing the switch off the tree which will remind her that young ladies do NOT soil their expensive dresses whilst canoodling with unsavory characters who drink "tea" and smoke hookahs. And hang out with little girls taking lots and lots and LOTS of photos of them.

Poor Mr. Dodgson. So very misunderstood I suppose. We may never really know why he hung out with little kids, or what he was smoking, besides a pipe. But he did leave a fabulous story, and an intriguing mystery...why DID Mrs. Liddell suddenly forbid contact between her children, specifically Alice, and Charles Dodgson? And why did he publish the stories he invented for Alice under 'Lewis Carroll'? Perhaps to distance his book from any rumors possibly circulating regarding the sudden cutoff between he and the Liddells? The only way to find out is to go ask Alice, for I should think she knows.

More information regarding my Alice and Cheshire Cat are available on ebay:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=180474827709

Beatrice

I'd like to introduce Beatrice, my newest little Izannah Walker inspired doll.

Beatrice is named for Beatrice Harraden, a writer born in London in 1864. Her debut novel, "Ships That Pass In The Night" was published in 1893. A love story set in a tuberculosis sanatorium, I imagine to be quite the tear jerker...a 'la "Love Story." Not certain I could get through reading it. Beatrice wrote 11 novels, and was heavily involved women's rights, publishing her work in the suffragette paper "Votes For Women". She passed from this world in 1936.

My little Beatrice is made from paperclay over a cloth body, is handsculpted and wears a completely handmade frock of glazed cotton in a lovely deep shade of madder red.

She's got a lovely petticoat with tiny pintucks and lace, drawers (what self-respecting little gal wouldn't?) and painted striped stockings with little handsculpted balmoral boots.

Beatrice is for sale on ebay, and if anyone cares to give her a good home, she'd surely appreciate it! She's all dressed for Valentines, so she is of course under the impression she's going to some big fancy party... so I hope someone takes pity on her and she doesn't suffer the horrific dreaded female condition of 'all dressed up and nowhere to go'. Besides, if she doesn't sell, I'm just gonna stick her in a drawer and forget about her. I tend to be rather neglectful of little dolls who, through no fault of their own remain trapped in my nest.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAP.dll?ViewItem&item=180466741111...



Thanks so much for looking, and please, as always...pardon my incredible lack of photography skills.