CRAFT_ZombieDolls_.pdf

(431 KB) Pobierz
FeatUre
Zombies
&
Robots
&
Bears
oh my!
By Mary Belton
The world of creepy
cute dolls and the
people who make them.
K
Photography by Dwight Eschliman
lops is a sexy beast, with curved pointy
horns and a bottom row of sharp jagged
teeth. His handsome felt-lined button eye
catches mine, and I admire his polyester strip of
man-fur that runs from his chin to below his navel.
He’s the ultimate Cyclops, a lady’s monster, if you
will, at least according to his creators at Creature
Co-op (creatureco-op.com), who run a booth at the
annual Los Angeles Bazaar Bizarre, a bustling craft
fair that sells everything from knitted food to lami-
nated purses to magnet boards made with vintage
frames. I get to the fair right after the doors open,
and already it’s mobbed with people. As I make my
way down the long aisles of vendors, I realize that
hand-stitched dolls — which range from adorable
Japanese-influenced animals to half-crazed fuzzy
creatures that hover somewhere between cute
and creepy — are attracting swarms of people and
seem to be one of the hottest categories at the fair.
According to Robert Kalin of Etsy (etsy.com), an
online marketplace for handmade stuff, the stitched
doll trend started in 2003 with the popularity
of Uglydolls (uglydolls.com). Six years earlier,
Sun-Min Kim, just out of art school, stitched her
Craft:
40
Craft:
Volume 01
41
first Uglydoll (based on a drawing by her boyfriend,
designer David Horvath) named Wage, a pointy-
toothed, orange plush creature who wears a blue
apron. According to his back story, Wage works at
Super Mart, even though management at the store
doesn’t know of Wage’s existence, and when Wage is
off-duty, he tries to make friends with fire hydrants,
phone booths, and anything else that looks lonely.
Kim and Horvath’s first order was with Giant
Robot, an Asian-Americana pop-culture shop in
West L.A., who asked for 20 Uglydolls. Those sold
out in one day, so Giant Robot ordered 20 more,
then 50. The order shot up to 1,500 dolls within 18
months, and Kim’s hands began bleeding from sew-
The order shot up to 1,500
dolls within 18 months,
and Kim’s hands began
bleeding from sewing
them all herself.
ing them all herself. That’s when she decided it was
time to hire help. By 2003, Uglydolls were a bona
fide hit with college students and soccer moms
alike. These days, 60,000 Uglydolls are manufac-
tured each month in China, and hand-stitching
dolls is a crafting craze.
Hundreds of crafters use the internet as their
trading post, where they buy, sell, trade, and
exchange information on these weird little dolls.
Communities of crafters are sharing their creations
and feeding off of each other’s ideas, generating
mini-trends like knitted bears in striped sweaters,
knitted Yodas and zombies, cats with two heads,
hand-stitched body parts, or crocheted cupcakes.
Etsy recently hosted a contest for a specific style
of stitched doll known as
amigurumi.
Amigurumi is
a Japanese word meaning crocheted or knitted doll.
The jury is out among doll makers as to whether
the cuteness and weirdness of these creatures are
part of the definition, but Kalin, organizer of Etsy’s
amigurumi contest, encourages entrants to design
“mashups and mutants.” Contest entries included
butter & toast, a pirate squid, a turtle bird, an
42
Craft:
Volume 01
angry sheep, and a coffee bean. The pirate squid
took first place.
Kalin says amigurumi dolls are the most popular
items on the Etsy site, with a sell rate of over 50%.
They go for anywhere from $10 to $100, but with
certificates of authenticity, Kalin believes the toys
could be big business, claiming, “Amigurumi could
be the next Beanie Baby, only handmade.”
The most popular seller on Etsy is a crafter
known as Gourmet Amigurumi, a.k.a. Beth Doherty,
whose own site includes bikini-clad bears, squishy
bean-filled snails, beatnik cats, and screaming punk
girls. A painter with a fine arts degree, Doherty took
up crocheting to unwind after she was hospitalized
with crushing migraine headaches. When she found
links to Japanese amigurumi sites on
craftster.org,
she began making small crocheted animals. “First
I made a dumpy little cat,” she says, but eventually
graduated to little girls and snails. Doherty admits,
“I’m embarrassed to tell people what I do. I have to
explain that they aren’t hideous.”
In fact, it’s just the opposite. Because of her
attention to detail and exquisite craftsmanship,
many other doll makers cite Doherty as an inspira-
tion. A perfectionist, Doherty admires Japanese
artisans for their precision. “Japanese crafters don’t
mind spending lots of time on a small piece, and it’s
those little details that really appeal to me.”
Doherty also claims Andy Warhol among her
influences. “His work isn’t my favorite, but I admire
his attitude toward art. He blended consumer
goods with art.” Doherty seems to have a knack for
this as well. Kalin says that not only are Doherty’s
dolls the best sellers on Etsy, they are usually sold
within 20 minutes of being uploaded.
Guam-born Jess Hutchison, who now lives in San
Francisco and is known for her hundreds of knitted
robots and cute creatures, doesn’t like to sell her
goods. “I prefer that people ask me how to make a
toy rather than how to buy it. Politically, it’s a natu-
ral extension of the DIY thing.” Hutchison explains,
“We want to make stuff as humans, and it makes
Knitted zombies and their victims (preceding pages) are made by
Hannah Simpson, who’s obsessed with George Romero’s 1978
Dawn of the Dead.
Influenced by Japanese toys, these robots
(right) were knitted by Jess Hutchison, who’s been making toys
since she was a kid. Cute with an edge, crocheted rabbit and
lamb dolls (page 44) by Beth Doherty are examples of what she
sells on her site
gourmetamigurumi.com.
FeatUre
43
Craft:
43
sense making stuffed toys, creating something
functional in an emotional way, something that has
an artistic quality to it.”
Unlike Doherty, Hutchison didn’t study art in
school. During a period of unemployment, her sis-
ter taught her to knit. Once she got tired of making
sweaters, she thought, “What if I knit a robot?”
Hutchison counts Disney concept artist Mary
Blair among her influences. Blair was the concept
artist for several Disney films, including
Alice in
Wonderland, Cinderella,
and
Peter Pan,
and was the
designer of the Disneyland attraction It’s a Small
World. Her colorful, quirky abstract work inspires
many stitched doll makers.
Hutchison makes frequent pilgrimages to
“We want to make stuff as
humans, and it makes sense
making stuffed toys, creating
something functional in an
emotional way.”
Japanese bookstores for amigurumi pattern books.
“They are doing the most innovative stuff,” she
says, “and the patterns are visual, much simpler
than the way we write them. You don’t need to
know Japanese. There are new pattern books
every week.”
Hannah Simpson, a British pub worker in Oxford,
England, gets 10,000 hits a week on the Flickr page
displaying her knitted
Dawn of the Dead
dolls. A
novice, Simpson started knitting dolls a little over
a year ago. Obsessed with George Romero’s 1978
Dawn of the Dead,
to the point where Simpson
owns four copies of the horror flick and has seen it
at least 50 times, the zombies were her first stab
at doll making. Why the love affair with
Dawn of the
Dead?
Simpson calmly explains, “They’re us, we’re
them,” referring to the film’s underlying message of
consumerism, conformity, and primal fear.
Once Simpson began knitting dolls, she couldn’t
stop. In a constant rush to make more, she knits on
her day shift at the pub and brings her wool every-
where she goes. Her latest project is knitting the
band The White Stripes. Next, she plans to recreate
characters from the
Star Wars
movies of the 70s.
German artist Patricia Waller straddles the fence
between kitsch and art with her crocheted creations
that are better fit to sit in a gallery than to be tossed
on a sofa. Citing Marcel DuChamp, René Magritte,
Jeffrey Koons, and Vincent van Gogh among her
influences, Waller’s pieces include co-joined teddy
bears, a shark clenching a human leg between its
teeth, and dentures soaking in a glass jar.
To Waller, crocheting is a political statement. She
contends that wool is consistently neglected in the
art world and says, “Of course I take advantage of the
image of ‘housewife art,’ so that, at first glance, my
works appear innocent. On a closer look, however,
people will discover a sort of vicious irony. I am inter-
ested in transferring the material to another level.”
Australian toy artist Jäke Henzler has also
become obsessed with making knitted dolls. Before
picking up the needles, Henzler’s primary creative
outlet was digital imaging, but no longer. Henzler
confessed, “While I’m knitting one toy, I get an idea
for the next one and start it right after I’m finished.”
Henzler’s pieces are both funny and thought-
provoking. A homage to the Van Eyke masterpiece
Arnolfini and His Bride
features knitted versions of
Arnolfini, his bride, and the baby that Henzler imag-
ines the couple was expecting in the original portrait.
The knitted baby is still attached to the bride by a
red wool umbilical cord. A set of eight knitted tam-
pons replete with strings and tiny faces is Henzler’s
comment on feminine product advertising. Vicki Vom
Vom is a red doll vomiting brown yarn with green
flecks. Celine, yet another creation, holds the heart
that has been ripped out of her chest, in her hands.
Lately, Henzler has changed his approach,
complaining, “I’m tired of the creepy thing for
now.” Instead, he has decided to go for straight-up
cute. Among his latest creations are Trevor the
Effeminate Koala and a one-eyed polar bear
named Sasha.
Cute. But kinda creepy.
×
Mary Belton is a freelance television producer. She lives in
Los Angeles and spends her free time seeking out the odd
and fantastic.
FeatUre
44
BeCoMe a Charter sUBsCriBer
to CraFt Magazine
44
Craft:
Volume 01
Craft:
45

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika:

Zgłoś jeśli naruszono regulamin