My Obsession With Alice
“The time has come, to talk of other things–of shoes and ships and sealing wax, and cabbages and kings. And why the sea is boiling hot, and whether pigs have wings. Calloo, Callay, no work today, we’re the cabbages and kings.” – The Walrus
There is something quite magical in those simple words, they make me dream of wonderous creatures and adventures. I love to read all the poems contained in the books over and over. I even have the start of the Jabberwock tattooed on my leg.
My Alice obsession started very early, and I can’t really remember why. Was it watching the Disney film? Or reading the books? I perhaps will never know now, unless my long-term memory comes back when I get old and my short-term memory disappears. Not long shout my kids, and it’s true I do already have an appalling memory. But I digress.
I do remember having an Alice doll which was fantastic and must be in my mother’s loft now. But she was hard plastic and quite tall, and if you held her shoulders in the right way you could make her walk (the doll that is, not mother). But best of all she had a record player inside her with tiny records in bright vinyl colours that would play and make it seem as if she were speaking. It was my prize procession. I need to go on a search for that doll. But again, that’s not why I started this blog. No, it was to tell you about my latest Alice Doll and show you a few pictures of Alice related characters I have recently finished or am working on.
Apologies for the quality of this picture I found it on Google. Exactly like mine.
“Still she went on growing, and, as a last resource, she put one arm out of the window, and one foot up the chimney,”
My latest Alice is a lot smaller than that large Alice of many years ago, she must have just eaten some of the mushroom. Hee hee. I often make my dolls about 12 inches long (30cm for you kids) but this Alice is smaller still, coming in at 10 inches high. Why? I’m not sure really, I made her head and then worked back for the right size body to fit and ended up at 10. And it suits her well. Sometimes I do think that I should make bigger dolls, it would make sewing dolls clothes a lot easier, making puff sleeves that small is a little fiddly, it has to be said, but I do like a smaller doll. They are much easier to find space for in a home, they can scooch up on a shelf easily and there is always room for a little one.
Alice is definitely why most of my dolls have puffed sleeves and full skirts to their dresses. I just love this look.
A perfectly good height
Alice is also the perfect height for photo shoots with the White Rabbit, Humpty and Tweedle Dee and Dum. The Cheshire Cat I’m not sure about. He could be a little smaller, I think. But they all do look marvellous together, don’t they?
Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, I should point out, are not finished, ever so often I do a little more work on them but for some reason they never make it to the completed side. Alice and the Rabbit are for sale though and recently appeared in the Artistic Souls Gallery. The Cheshire Cat was a bit of an experiment where I used water colours on his body and they never really set so he can’t be sold, I may try again one day and find a way of getting those stripes in a permanent fixing.
“If you don’t know where you are going any road can take you there.”
– The Cheshire Cat
How about you?
Can you remember when your Alice obsession began? I’m interested to see how many loved her as children themselves or discovered her in later life and fell in love then? And Why? Why are we so obsessed? What wonderous quality do these stories have that keep us enthralled after all these years?
Next Boxes
I am also developing an obsession with boxes. Not just storage boxes, no that would worry me. No, display boxes, special handmade boxes to keep dolls safe but equally to look fab when displayed with the dolls. I have made 2 so far, one of which was for Alice. But I will show you those in more detail in my next blog post.
‘Till next time
Ally.
ps. here’s a link to my Alice art doll gallery, if you’d like to see more, just click on the picture and go down the rabbit hole.
Hi I love your Alice dolls do you have any of Alice for sale?
Massive Alice fan also!!
Hi Jason, thanks so much for getting in touch, please email me to discuss available dolls. ajartdolls.co.uk