Brain drain about mummies

Morbid anatomy is a great blog for doll ideas. I went and saw what looked like a pretty wooden doll. very realistic and detailed. By hy dont they show her costume and maybe ball jointed body. However , its a mummy of a child from 1920! she so sweet and perfectly preserved. I cant help but think how loved she must ahve been and almost imagine her speaking in a little voice or blinking again!

She reminds me of a mummy I had seen in a magazine years ago and fell in love with!

Juanita the ice princess. She had a silver doll with headress, red wool blanket and Juanita was to me something alien fae. A being from another world! I drew the artifacts that were burried with her and I started carving wooden thingies that were abstracted human effigies. I got into those African effigy dolls full of nails and trying to copy that look on the crude things I made from found objects,sticks and carved avacado seeds.

I think my love of artdolls is rooted in my love of mummies and bog men,north pole explorers preserved in ice, tragic figures of Pompeii and the egypian tombs that use to occupy my young mind.

So anyway that explains why this artist Shain Erin is a present favorite . I woudl love to own one of these ,but they are all so cool how to choose!? http://shainerin.wordpress.com/

To me these effigy's hail back to the true orign of dolls which is suposed to be derived from the word "Idol" Africa with the voodoo, and original zombies, mysterious jungle cultures with sacred native ritual, the shabati and the wax dolls burned on a pyre to take away illness. The medicine men and mystical women. In my own way Im doing the same thing...making effigies of children with a nitcho in the chest for reliques. Preserving effemeral memories,symbols of a child that was. Since all of us adults are the remnant of a child that no longer exists physicly ,but in spirit is still with us.