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Koala Avril
Tiniest frays, trims, ribbons, seams of jeans, shirts and curtains,
They say it’s a mess,
She says it’s for the best,
She climbs the tallest branch, spread her frilly arms and whoosh she plunges into the clouds.
Cat Lord Tangleton
The thick and coarse upholstery fabric fibres wrap up bits and and pieces of throwaways. Tangled fibres matted conceals the path he took to get here.
Empire building is not not easy, not easy at all to trample upon souls. Considers the blood that stained him, Lord Tangleton wears the veneer of innocence damn well.
Bat Eduardo
Co-creating with serendipity. She traded full creative control for tenderness. The result is a silly bat she didn’t know she’d dearly love.
***
A knot atop a knot sat there while I made this and that. Winter was here then spring came, to him I tied three different scraps. He grew tall and patient. One summer day he got these things that look like wings. Ah, now he looks enough of something that I can call it something like a moth! A butterfly! A paper plane with a head! Yes, very well. Now that I know where it is, what it is, and that it is has a persistent shape in my head, I can safely put it on the table again.
I took in enough of it’s shape in my head now I know what it is, that it is in my head in one piece instead of 389.
Found some eyes. He wanted them. Someone else’s arms becomes his ears, that don’t look like ears, but are he says so.
He chose them the safety orange fuzz like how we reach for water on a hot day. He doesn’t see well, safety orange instead get him seen. And a tongue to lick sweat in the air but who cares.
Moulding with Memories
An unfinished Maltese, a dying laptop and a dream of crepes stirred up a flurry of memories that became a mould for casting a new soft doll.
***
Strands of white crepe cotton wound around different colours of the rainbow and more, some not quite long enough and are left dangling.
Dangling like his ears, one down, the other folded and flipped over, from running too fast, after his volleyball.
***
The laptop is more than 10 years old, screen with a permenant giant snowflake, not safe, the browser warned. Mr Lunarian said it will be the last upgrade. It might forget. He put in a new SSD, whatever that means, and passed me a rubber-banded mint-tin. Check it’s all there, he said. I plugged it into an iPad, clicked the first folder, clicked the first file. A black photo with a blacker shadow.
Oh it’s nothing, he said.
Dog, I said. My dog.
***
On the white blank, I stitched a nose. Then sketched on both sides of it, black strokes.
I could not sketch out the eyes.
What if it looked like him. My heart is already heavy.
What if it looked nothing like him. My heart is already invested.
Is he gonna be happy sad or angry. Is it gonna be like him or not like him. Is it him or someone else?
There were two of them, brothers. Years ago, I had news that one of them passed. With my own old clothes, I stitched them in all colours, blue, yellow, orange, purple, anything but the white grey and brown that they were on the outside. I made the colours they were on the inside. One year when I visited my brother, I gave him a pair. My little nephew grabbed them as he did all soft toys. My brother shielded them and said these are precious, not your toys. He identified them as I had intended and I didn’t even have to say a word.
***
What is it tell me.
NIghtmare.
Tell me.
Someone smacked them with a spade. One of them fell through the elevator in space. The dog is gone.
What dog.
They are crepes. Crepes sold at the lift lobby, and when chocolate sauce painted their faces, they jumped to the ground and walk.
Oh just crepes. That’s alright.
They are dogs, they are real.
The dream ran sandpaper on my windpipe like I ran too fast too far on a cold day underdressed.
Winded.
I woke up and sat at the table, with the white dog. He is looking at me or through me.
Winded.
What is this feeling.
I’m afraid. Afraid of forgetting the shape of what I was holding after it slipped away.
***
I am the mould.
From it, a cast.
***
The polyester nylon is shedding, getting in the way of stitches for eyes. The tail blocks the needle. Just like he would have blocked me.
***
No one owns you. You are a gift. I want to watch you run away from me again only to turn around wait and run again. You always came back, you only needed to know you could run. I was the one who ran away for real. I hope your memory fails you, like my laptop, and forget that you slept by my bed the first night you came home, that you first heard me say that word that became your name. I don’t want to see you again. I had been telling myself. If there was next life, let us both be butterflies.
***
What would appear on this furry pile of cloth. I don’t need a reference photo. It is painted on my eyelid.
Close your eyes but fight to keep them opened like trying to stay awake. When you feel the top lashes pressed against the bottom, what’s in front of you becomes columns of light becomes what’s been there all along.
***
A star of fabric radiates from the threaded nose.
My hand echoes my heart. I tugged too hard at the eyes. Try again. Too hard again. And still too hard. Tension raised the surface like your bulging eyes, like marbles seen from the side.
The nylon hair again gets in the way of stitching the eyes the way your hair sticks to your marble eyes. You smiled , tongue out.
Where are you now? Wherever you are, I hope you run free in the company of lettuce and volleyballs.
Quantum Magic Slug
A reverie of creative obstacles, errors and disappointments turn into a bundle of joy. Fabric eyes that failed to meet requirements, a visiting garden slug and a worn baby onesie converged on a day and Sylvy was born.
***
It could be a Bonds suit but I can’t be sure. I was so quick in cutting the label off clothes I wont and can’t wear. The biggest baby wondersuit is for 24-36 months.
Been making dolls so long don’t know how not to. Seasoned, jaded or a zealous dollmaker I can’t decide, but without second thought, I started stuffing the wondersuit with every piece of fabric around it that isn’t itself.
Somewhere around where a real baby’s knee would have been, I ran out of fabric within my arm’s reach. It’s a sign to stand up or stop. I cut the decision paralysis together with the stuffed portion out of the remaining limp majority. Bye bye, have a good life.
It sat on the table for a day and another, and days turned into weeks into part of the table. I stopped seeing it.
***
She needs to see me. I know it’s a she, by the way she almost looked at me if only she could, if only she had eyes. She needs to really see me.
I make a lot of spare eyes, by accident. You won’t kow where you’re going until you start walking. And only when you’ve walked a bit that you know where you’re not going.
The chance of an eye fitting on first try is one in ten. Ok, I made that up. But the chance sure is low, because if I got it right more I would not have so many eyes.
And arms. And noses. And elastic bands. And what’s that? Some eyeballs make good wrist support. Some ok mobile phone holders. I have a spare giant doll torso that is a super duper meditation cushion.
In one of the holes on the pink polka dot side, I stuck what used to be an arm of an itty bitty dachshund doll. Mirror that, and add 2 more random fabric balls.
***
She has been coming into the house. From the weather warped timbre deck through the sliding door shut tight.
She comes in through the same opening we cannot find. Mr Lunarian escorts her out through the front door.
She comes in the next day, through the same opening we still cannot find. Mr Lunarian escorts her out through the same front door.
I stitched up the hacked off end neatly into a soft point. I held her up in front of Mr Lunarian.
“ Sylvy!”
He puts her on his left shoulder and he closed his eyes.
” She sucks away the excess emotion, she takes away the pressure that’s not mine, she even eats up the ego I don’t have much use for right now.”
I haven’t seen much of Sylvia since. Only her magic.
Wishing you a Sylvy. May your Sylvy find you.
Dollmaking as resistance
“Hear us now”, I shouted standing on a trash bin, among so many others like myself, around which cars had to part. But only in my mind.
Most of my life, I lived in a place in which such action could have me jailed.
Oh no, I don’t want to be physically jailed too.
Help arrives but only when you want it
Then came the Mighty Girls.
They are dolls. They are girls.
They are me. They are me-then. I was just so slightly younger, so slightly less embarrassed to call this fantasy version of myself girls. I now identify as a person.
Mighty Normal
Maybe not even mighty. Maybe just normal—a not-yet muzzled person who still believe. Yeah.
Normal comes in different colours
I made them with orange, black, yellow, blue hair; black, brown, white, beige, orange skin; black, brown, blue, green eyes.
Something like a soft version of moulded plastic dress up dolls. What I had in mind was a DIY-eco-(anti)-fashion doll that’s like a cross between a treechange doll and an upcycled fabric doll. Actually. I have no idea what I’m saying.
What I created instead was a bunch of small raggedy resistance with resting bitch faces. Not even anti-fashion, but no fashion. No fancy dress. No dress. No pants. Just a tee.
I can make clothes. I had the knowledge. I had the experience of making clothes for people—in the worst case scenario, to show wealth, in better and more common scenarios, to speak for them in a way they could not with their voices.
Wait, isn’t it the same here with these girl-dolls, not-girl dolls, DIY soft dolls, eco dolls, DIY anti-fashion dolls?
Slogan tees speak.
Silence speaks. Noisybeak.
Is that what I’m doing? Noisybeak speaks?
Every now and then, one or two slogan people dolls pop out of my head through my hands. ( Tho not nearly as often as protesters take to the streets here in the City of Melbourne.)
Where do dolls come from?
I don’t know where these mighty- girls-people-doll-things with so much spirit come from or why they are here. I mean, I don’t even watch news on TV.
A few years ago I would have called now-me irrational. I can’t lie. The energy is in the air. And dust settles on me.
Not as many as I have been called to make have been made. I regret it tho regret is quite useless.
I had no idea where the energy was coming from. I made some. Then I did not. Most of the time resisted doing what my mind could not understand.
Being is making is being, perhaps
Mighty girls have changed over the years.
Some girls, some not, some non-binary, some with no face, some with knots for arms some with wires, some bigger some smaller, some more animal on the outside. (Maybe some more so on the inside?)
I made a big person doll for my Mr Lunarian, so he could learn to give himself love as he gives to others.
I identify with some more than others.
Nonono teaches boundaries
Swim girl reminds me to go outdoors.
Toadiana shows me what self-worth looks as a toad or human all the same.
Many don’t even wear clothes anymore. They don’t need it.
Naked we come, naked we go. So it goes.
So it goes.
Mighty girl Hannah
Hannah wanted a different life. She moved onto land. Sometimes she gets so tired she can’t walk, she goes to the beach to hear the familiar music of home.
Jack Russell Flex
A bad dream woke him. Flex sat up, crows cawed. He looked up and said to the cloudy sky, thanks for the challenge. I will turn this into a beautiful day.
Flex looks at you one second, future you the next. He’s decided. He runs. Jumps. And kisses you all the same.
Greyhound Claudia
She sits. She looks at you looking at her. She looks away at the butterfly then back at you. You smile, she smiles. She’s Claudia.
Claudia asks what’s in the night sky. You stretched out your hand. She sits. You lift her up. Her eyes twinkle. Stars twinkle.
Jeans waistband twisted origami style became a shape that could be any four legged animal. I stitched onto her a skin of faded black t shirt. Smooth and long, they could be a slender grey dog. But too weak to strike out on her own. They’d need boundaries, in the form of thinned stretch denim, protecting the soft inside surrounding a strong core.
Cat Erwin
One eye on darkness, one eye on light, the pendulum of his bushy tail guides Erwin to balance.
