About the Artist
Since early childhood I have had a strong natural
instinct in sculpting and drawing. I also made marionettes and simple dolls out
of papier-mache’. As a young adult I spent three years in a Ukranian school for
tailoring. Here I learned to design and make fine custom clothing. I had
designed and made custom clothing for people as a career, but my passion had
remained with dolls. I began to make one out of three papier-mache’ and fabric
dolls. These three dolls wore hand-sewn authentic looking Ukrainian heritage
clothing. They were so impressive that they were displayed in a Ukrainian
Heritage Museum for several months.
When I
moved to America I found other mediums for sculpting with endless
possibilities. I was amazed to the many things that I have been able to create,
which were not possible with what I was used to using. I quickly started to
create my first fully made doll from Polymer Clay. I fell in love with this
material. This love had created a strong desire for other mediums to create my
dolls with. Finally I had found the ultimate medium to use, Porcelain. I knew
about dolls made from porcelain from my early childhood, but I never knew that
it was possible to make them at home. I had spent many hours researching and
gathering information from the internet and books. After obtaining such
knowledge I began to work on sketches for creating my first porcelain doll. I
sculpted, made molds after molds, it was a difficult process with many trials
and errors. The whole process was like magic to me after doing all of this
difficult process and then seeing the finished doll. I have come to understand
that people like dolls that are posable. I have worked very hard to perfect the
joints that make the porcelain dolls movable. At last, I have made a fully posable porcelain doll mimicking human movements. My dolls represent my
personality. Each doll is different from one another with its timeless beauty,
their handmade outfits and accessories. I chose the porcelain because it’s a
hard translucent material. Porcelain with its china paint will never fade holding its beauty for
many many years to come.
