Telling Ghost Stories

Wading by the lake-shore was how I spent my summers....
Watching my lover casting far and wide for golden
fishes and complimenting his skill.

Casting his greedy line further he found a catch more
golden than I would ever be....

Water, water, everywhere....What grave for me.

Floating in the water is how I'll spend this summer....
I'll again be the elusive prize he can never catch
and only he'll see.

I love ghost stories...the Gothic ones full of sadness and passion. No obvious gore for me thank you. The idea of an implied horror can be creepier than actually seeing the bloody victim or monster. The Medieval Silver Dagger Ballads and Edward Gorey's inspired my series Spectres of Unfortunate Romances.

So it was easy to come up with the idea of doing a series of ghost dolls, but the poem aspect really threw me at first. I am essentially creating stories and dolls about murder victims, but at the same time I want the ghosts to be giving their murderers hell too.

With the character, Nerina, she my have spent hours with her lover watching him fish and was killed and replaced by her rival, but with her ghost lurking in his favorite fishing spot....I don't think he'll enjoy himself any more.

I'm betting that Nerina's visits will get him to confess or give himself away. Since he's the only one that can see her, the problems the murderer will face trying to hide his fear will eventually break him down.

I really want to stay with the period motif of these dolls because the long skirts lend themselves to creating the floating feeling of a ghost. The victims in all the Silver Dagger Ballads I've seen were women, but some of the victims in Gorey's stories were male, so I have some choices to make as I continue this series.

Since this isn't the 14th century and women aren't quite the chattel we once were, I suppose I should consider doing a few male victims of love too. It is easy to portray only women as victims of choosing poorly when falling in love, but failed romances happen to everyone .

These dolls tend to be cathartic for me . I fill their stories with sad memories and let them go. Everyone can relate to a bad romance and the relief when it's over.

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

I'm so depressed! Not only is our fight for a proper category on Etsy going slowly.....There were not enough people signed up for the ad in FiberArts magazine. So, no ad for Le Chat Noir Studios.

My lovely picture will just have to wait.

Who the HECK are YOU?

I was making a monkey figure or in my terms a "minkey" last night. I know I was. But low and behold this little guy appeared. HE wanted a tail...but not a fuzzy one and no external ears. But he was adamant that the tail have a vinyl tip and that he needed vinyl stripes on his face too. A lizard monkey? Well, I guess that's what I've made.

I thought he might like wings... wasn't interested. I didn't make this doll by myself. He just seemed to take control of the process and I followed along for the ride. So here is my newest addition to my Pet Shop of the Old Ones.... A lizard ape.

Man, I need to come up with a better name. Winter Lizard, Scaly Ape, Wooly Dragon, do any of these sound good to you?

I love Lalo, my light tent!

I used to have a horrible time taking pictures. At first, I didn't understand how to use the camera and MJ's idea of teaching me was pointing at some teeny button and bellowing. "Push that now!!!No No! That! " I never could figure out what "THAT" was.


Now when I teach somebody to do a thing, I say, " If you want to cut
the wire, use the wire-cutters on the table." not "Use those with that." Maybe it's just a guy thing? I don't know.

Anyway, I read the camera manual and learned the names of the buttons and what they were supposed to do. I even bought my new friend, Lalo, the Light Tent.

Lalo has been very good to me. This pre-Lalo picture of Bubbles Latour is okay, but I think the pictures of Lyla (the cat) and Elvis (the monkey) are not thoroughly embarrassing and show my sculptures off pretty well.

With Lalo, the problems I had with lighting my pieces are fewer and make this venture into photography much easier for me.

New Chihuahua Poco Diablo

I really enjoy making these little patchwork dogs. Diablo is my newest piece in this series. He's also the
first chi I've done with an open mouth.

I re-did the head a couple of times to tone
down the facial distortions. The mouth was more time consuming than I thought it would be. The fact that this dog design needs 2 eyes of different sizes made things more difficult.