Vancouver Faces : First nation art

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Aranzi Aronzo Dolls Make Aranzi Aronzo Dolls

The Dolls in Vancouver

During civilian times, they seem to be concentrated around Water Street in Gastown.  There is NOOD (New Objects Of Desire) and Modernkind, plus a whole load of dedicated tourist shops full of mounties, moose, and polar bears.

But thanks to next week’s Olympics, the dolls are everywhere!  A basic, cute, softie kind of doll.  There’s three mascots for the games, there is Mukmuk, Miga (black and white), and the big hairy Quatchi.  Here they are, bouncy and expensive!

Doll Factory: Sally Wiggin, John Waters, Art Garfunkel and Sophie Masloff

A new crop of dolls, this time all based on actual people, they are getting made!  I hope to finish them all today or tomorrow, with some more caffeine just maybe.  I hope they would all go well together in real life, maybe double dating?  John Waters + Sophie Masloff, Art Garfunkel + Sally Wiggin?  Or assemble as you like, I’ve never been a good matchmaker.

Dolls Return to the Union Project!

For this past Saturday’s Union Project fundraiser event Unwrapped, the dolls + monsters were invited to participate.  I didn’t go, I don’t know who bought what, but a bunch of them have moved onto better places.  And the monster mirrors too!  So I bid them adieu — and if you happen to be one of the new owners from Saturday night, send me a message + a photo, I’d like to see them in their new habitat!

Here is the table for sale that I set up before the event got going..

Monster Litter from Belfast, Holylands

I sold most of these monsters at the Belfast and Dublin shows back in June, and I never properly documented them before they left me.  A lot of them were pocket sized, made out of QFT Lost & Found hats and scarves.  Others were from huge bags of underused clothing that students had left piled up in front of their Holylands doors when the school year ended.  I had to tell passersby that I was an art student when they shot me ‘Why are You Going Through Abandoned Bags of Clothes’ looks.  One day, I hope, I will not even register those looks.

Go Mairead Go!

The French Disaffected Young Woman Doll

I made her out of salvages from the mysterious surplus-craft-supply secret warehouse in North Belfast. I got snuck in, and rummaged through huge crates of weird remnants of carpet and towel fabrics to find some decent sewable pieces. They all turned out to be fantastically drab colored — my Wonka World fantasies of raspberry and turquoise felts sunk into brown, slate and puke weaves — but still they have some nice sheen to them, and they make a nice background for lapel flowers and mysterious looks.

So here she is, I made her after some French girls I saw in QFT movies. She is tall, almost two feet, and her expression? Well, it’s something.

The Grandma Superhero Doll

I made her for my Grandma while up in Amish-country-Michigan this summer.  Her cape is a Scrabble cape, with her initials — for a total of 6 points.  Her hair is from upholstery fabric, PCP-wide blue eyes, about a foot tall, and good friends with my Grandma’s faceless businessman George.  They reside at her house in Detroit, watching all the TCM movies they could ever want.

The Sarah Palin Doll

She was an accident. I love my Bouffant women and my Dork Librarian women — combine the two often enough and, Question, what do you end up with?
Answer, something creeping towards Sarah Palin. She’s about two feet tall with those legs and that hair. I like the green glasses, and she has a dark bloody heart, and is that mouth curled up into a smile or a scowl?

Perhaps there is some business in this, maybe I’ll tote her around Pittsburgh with me until I rack up some orders, whether it be for little shrines or voodoo ceremonies. I’m just disturbed that I sat down to make a doll  and out comes Sarah Palin. There is some Greek Drama in that.