Doll collecting isn’t just for kids anymore
By JIM GERSBACH
Of the Emerald
Baby-blue eyes stare fixedly
out of decapitated heads as
crowds mill about stacks of
naked bodies and assorted
limbs.
A well-dressed woman picks
up a child’s foot and asks, “How
much is this?"
Such body trading was a fea
tured attraction when Eugene
area doll clubs recently held
their sixth annual Doll and Toy
Festival at the Lane County
Fairgrounds.
Doll festivals bring together
dollmakers and collectors from
around the West Coast to buy
and sell dolls, doll accessories
and toys of all sorts.
Dolls are one of mankind's
oldest toys. Prehistoric Indian
girls played with dolls made
from cornhusks.
In the 18th and 19th centur
ies, dolls and dollhouses were
considered fine art, and girls
received elaborate dolls
dressed in the fashions of the
time.
The Eugene doll convention,
however, caters to the adult
who collects dolls.
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. "The doll thing is very under
ground,” says Susan Denham,
a dollmaker from Cottage Grove
who has made porcelain dolls
for four years.
"It's a quiet thing. Dolls are
sold from one person to the
other with no advertisements in
the paper.”
Denham says doll collectors
range from those who buy dolls
ready-made to those who pur
chase only the finished body
and make all the clothes them
selves.
Like most dollmakers, Den
ham purchases molds of an
tique dolls from companies in
the Southern and Eastern Unit
ed States. She then makes rep
licas to paint and dress ac
cording to her clients’ whims.
Most buyers choose dolls with
the same hair and eye color as
their family members, Denham
says.
Prior to World War I dolls were
numbered, Denham says. And
beginning in the 1920s they
were given names.
"They found out that dolls
with names sold better so nat
urally they began naming
then, Denham explains.
Another dollmaker at the fes
tival specializes in dolls with
personalities. Sharon Hays,
from Joseph in eastern Oregon,
makes dolls out of fresh Red
Delicious apples that shrink to
the size of a walnut when dried.
She peels them with a house
hold paring knife, carves out
a face, dips them in salt water
and dries them for a week. After
molding the shrunken and wrin
kled face into its final shape,
Hays inserts wooden beads for
eyes, tints the apple faces with
watercolors to add a life-like
hue and sprays them with
acrylic to preserve them.
Hays says she finds most of
the characters for her apple art
in the cowboys, farm wives,
ranchers, trappers and Indians
of eastern Oregon.
One is an old school marm
reciting from a book. Her eyes
peer sternly over the tops of her
spectacles. A bright red apple
stands on her miniature desk, a
present from an unseen
student.
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