The Early Years
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uh-oh...
Now, who are these characters?
A Visit from some Old Friends...
a couple of the Original Wee Peeple Dolls
made back in 1984
who dropped by for a brief visit with their Dollmaker mother
Phil M. Up (a Vagabond Hobo) and Pierrot with Bauble
You can imagine the conversations these two might have...
but it is that bad Bauble Fellow
who says all those raunchy things in front of the Ladies!
Remember the old tags...
This is what the Wee Peeple Doll Tags looked like in 1984.
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(from the collection of Jay Polsky... Thanks, Jay)
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hey, we're not doing much... how about a walk...
A Walk Down Memory Lane
remember these.....?
The Jesters on Sticks!
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These were for the kids... of all ages!
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Well, not everyone knows anymore what was going on with
The Wee Peeple Dolls
back in
the 80's
ok here we go... we're going back, back, back.... to
a time when the Wee Peeple Dolls were constructed upwards from
children's shoes...
These are actually the very first Wee Peeple Dolls,
made in 1980
big heads!
The Dollmaker delighted in creating every kind of character she could think of...
but the favorite dolls were always
The Portrait Wee Peeple
A Chinese Tailor. His employees wanted a Portrait Doll made of him
so they stole his shirt, his tie, his pants (well, his whole suit, really),
and his watch, and brought these items, like an offering, to the Dollmaker,
who made this Doll from all the stuff.
This Doll had a wardrobe!
shown here: Rick Stacy smiling along with his Portrait Doll
at home and at the Texas Renaissance Festival...
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Lots of Publicity in the 80's
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in December of 1983 the Wee Peeple were featured in
Texas Highways Magazine
There's a story referencing this page...
see the September 2008 Issue
of the Wee Peeple Newsletter
(The Story is entitled simply: The Dollmaker's True Story)
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1983
at the Texas Renaissance Festival...
IN 1983 the Wee Peeple were given an "ARBOR AREA"
(sort of like a porch or a pole barn)...
The next year in that space she built the Doll Shoppe and the Magick Garden.
Three upright (but no longer functional) 4x4's stand in the Magick Garden,
testimony to the old long-gone "Arbor Area".
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In 1984 the Wee Peeple were on the cover of the
Texas Weekly Sunday Supplement....
This Wizard with Crystal Ball WAS in the Dollmaker's Collection but it
burned in the fire that destroyed the Dollmaker's home.
The Football Player was a doll made for a high school boy,
commissioned by his mother. Bless her heart.
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October 2004
20 years later, the Photographer who took the pictures for that Sunday Supplement,
Allan Kimball, ran into the Dollmaker at the Watermelon Festival in Luling,
and, low and behold, he had become the owner of the Hill Country Sun...
Customers (whether purposefully or haphazardly) arriving
at the Wee Peeple Doll Shoppe at the Texas Renaissance Festival
in October of 2004 might remember the stacks of Hill Country Sun Newspapers
strewn about like hay bales in the display areas...
everybody got a Hill Country Sun Newspaper with their purchase that year.
Heck, everybody who walked across the threshold of the Doll Shoppe that season
got a Newspaper with the Wee Peeple Dolls on the cover.
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ok now...let's Keep going back in time....
BEFORE 1980
there were Dolls
but they were not called the Wee Peeple Dolls
the early dolls were "floppy" (gasp! NO!)
so now, let's really go back
Back to the 70's
in 1978
even before the Wee Peeple Dolls
there were the
"Dolls of the People You Know"
The Dollmaker's first attempt at
Portrait Dolls made from photographs and descriptions
$25 apeice.... for a Portrait Doll back then!!!
Located on Nueces Street in downtown Austin, Texas
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Standing up on their own two feet
was what characterized the Wee Peeple Dolls
So the Floppy Dolls pre-date the Wee Peeple Dolls.
This was an important change for the Dollmaker.
The evolution from sitting to standing.
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Keep going BACK...........
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OK... even BEFORE the "Dolls of the People You Know"
in 1975-1976
During the Dollmaker's senior year at college....
she submitted a request to conduct
a One-Year
Independent Study
in Toy and Dollmaking
the Dollmaker's College Yearbook Picture. (1976)
That would be Alfred State Ceramic College, Alfred, NY
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BACK, BACK,
to the very Beginning....
The Dollmaker's Story actually begins in college
with this doll...
The first Doll... the Ballerina Doll
"As a child, I had dreamed of becoming a Ballerina."
This doll was created long ago, during another warm and pleasant summer at home,
safely far away from the pressures of art school,
using her mother's old Singer sewing machine,
and hand embroidering the face... for the first time,
drawn to Dollmaking as a path of personal expression.
This was the doll that changed the course of the Dollmaker's life.
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This little male doll was the Dollmaker's first attempt at Soft-Sculpturing,
using a stretchy but ribbed knit for the face.
"This doll taught me that I needed to look for face fabric with no ribbing in it!"
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carved and dried Apple-Heads
"...were fine while I was at school in the dry Allegany Plateau,
but as soon as I brought these Apple Heads home to Southampton on the coast,
they grew mold and I had to toss them out."
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There were many other dolls made during her course of study...
the styrofoam marionette....the sock puppet...
(the Dollmaker was 23 years old at that time!)
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70's 80's 90's
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It is a time of surrendering to what you know to be truth.
Even though it cannot be proven, or confirmed, pointed out, documented, charted or
recorded in history. Surrender and trust your process.
The butterfly that you are, inside this human caterpillar, inside of this earthly cocoon,
is far greater than any illusion.
Let go and know that the divine plan will work through you no matter what.
The caterpillar is destined to become a butterfly!
Gillian MacBeth-Louthan
see whole article
http://spiritlibrary.com/gillian-macbeth-louthan/portal-of-choice
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Kandra Niagra, Dollmaker
PO Box 326
Smithville, Texas 78957
Phone: 512-332-6680
Email: bigkandra@aol.com
12/10
01/14
06/20
