Thanks for stopping in.
The Wellness Arts Gallery
invites you to a reception of Leslie Rodger’s "Surface Journeys”, an
exhibit of hand embroidered dolls March 7th 2014, 5:00pm
to 8:00pm. ”Surface Journey’s” opened on February 7th and runs through March
29th, 2014. The reception’s herbal table will feature hot
seasonal savory soup with the tasting spotlight on one of Quilter’s Comfort, locally
blended, certified organic seasonings; and sampling of beer, coffee and wine
jelly (made using locally sourced coffee, beer and wine) available for take home pleasure.
The Wellness Arts gallery
is located in Patricia’s Wellness Arts Café, 725 West Kirkwood Avenue at the Western entrance
to the BEAD. Free parking lot to the
east and on the street.
Sign up for Art Doll Making
workshops in the Wellness Arts Gallery.
Leslie Rodgers Artist
Statement
When I was a girl my father would draw
with me. He would make a mark on the
paper, and I would add a mark. He’d put
in a squiggle and I’d scribble a bit. In
awhile it would become apparent what the picture wanted to be, and then we’d
finish it to our mutual satisfaction. It
was wonderful fun, and it taught me somehow to see things that weren’t quite
there yet. I loved this collaborative work, although I didn’t know such a big
word for it yet.
Now my favorite way to work is to start
from something else. Piles of paper,
stacks of cloth, pots of paint all delight me, but nothing is more inspiring
than a found object, something that I can see into. I like to work with unknown
makers this way, extend the collaboration through time and space.
Visit
the Wellness Art Café page for Leslie’s complete artist statement and
biography.
In the 1940’s my Aunt Dorothy was living on
a farm in Kentucky and in the winter she had
time to sew for her own pleasure. She
made
a set of rag dolls of different sizes using a pattern she bought for a dime
from a newspaper advertisement. They were made of plain cloth with hair of rust
colored woolen yarn and embroidered faces. They were meant to resemble my
red-haired aunts, and most of them were dressed in calico dresses like the
house dresses women wore then. One wore a nurse’s uniform like my aunt herself.
When my uncle died my aunt packed up her
belongings and came back home to Indiana. She moved back to the family house in Vincennes, and many of her boxes
and trunks went into the garage. Time
passed, things not needed were forgotten and never unpacked. Mice came to live
in the garage. Bugs arrived. The garage developed a leak.
After several decades of this neglectful
storage the old house and garage were to be torn down. My brother and I, inheritors of the house
and therefore responsible for everything in it, began the long arduous task of
going through all the boxes and trunks. My grown daughters came to help us. It
took all summer. Late that June the
bottom fell out of a box and my brother tossed me a doll leg. There was an arm too, and part of a second
arm. They were foul smelling, dirty,
moth-scalped and mouse eaten.
We began to find doll parts, scattered in
various dilapidated boxes, I considered consigning them to the dumpster, which
seemed the most logical end for them, but as the number of found parts grew I
sensed a spark of life, a glimmer of potential.
I brought home the collected parts, cleaned them and reassembled them,
creating new limbs to replace the missing ones, mending the places where they
were mouse eaten. This was satisfying
work.
Rather than dress the dolls I began to
stitch on them with pearl cotton, adding colors and shapes as each piece seemed
to tell me what it needed next. The
first batch of dolls was done between July and December of 2006. The dolls became my constant companions. I worked on them daily in the studio and often carried parts
of them in my book bag to stitch on in free moments throughout the day. Then I found a set of unstuffed doll bodies
my mama had made in the mid 1950’s. They were part of a project for a church
bazaar, she’d made several completed and dressed dolls but had run out of time
so several cut and sewn bodies had ended up tucked into a drawer in her sewing
room and forgotten. Life had gone right
on without them for half a century. I
brought them out, stuffed them and embellished them, glad of a chance to have
more dolls to work on. Or play with.
In the years since I’ve discovered more
dolls. They sometimes lurk at garage
sales, flea markets and auctions. Apparently
my family was not the only ones to make dolls, nor the only ones to neglect
them or forget about them entirely. Our
mice were not the only ones to industriously devote their time to chewing holes
in dolls to pull out the stuffing for a nest.
The doll stitching is a delight to me,
pleasant work that makes me contentedly happy.
I’d do it even if no one but me ever saw a single one of them. I could be the Henry Darger of tatty old rag
dolls.
Wherever I go I keep an eye open for
some poor nibbled and stained girl who needs making over. I can go months or years without seeing one
at all, and then suddenly find a pair or a clutch of them from someone’s attic
cleaning. I was lucky to get copies of
the original patterns, but I’ve never used them to make a doll, only to make a
replacement leg. I’ve realized I don’t
want to make this type of doll as a new doll.
What interests me is working with old dolls, having someone else’s work
as a starting off point. I like it that the dolls have a history; many of them
have been around much longer than I have.
I like it that my work is collaboration with unseen hands of another
time and place. I even like
collaborating with the mice that have nibbled the bodies and the long ago
children who stained the faces in play.
It can take anywhere from 80 to a few hundred
hours to embellish the dolls with tiny stitches, depending on the size of the
original doll and how much mending she requires. It’s an intuitive process; I seldom know
where it’s going until we get there. The
dolls have always had a life of their own.
I just bring my needles and threads and come to play.
Visit
the Wellness Art Café page for Leslie’s art biography.
The Wellness Arts Gallery
features the work of local artist, craftspeople and creative people from around
the earth. During the winter we are open Tuesday through Friday, 1:00
pm to 5:00 pm;
Saturdays, 12 pm to 5 pm and first Friday’s 1:00
– 8:00 pm.
Artist interested in
exhibiting their works in the Wellness Arts Gallery or in presenting a class or
workshop are invited to contact us. We
look forward to meeting you and discussing the possibility of you exhibiting
your work with us or sharing your skills.
Sign up for our mailing
list or contact us at quilterscomfort@gmail.com.
