The doll that started it all!
While attending a gourd show in Palatka, Florida, I stopped at a
vendors table to check out her small gourds. I picked up one and said
“It looks like a doll’s body”. to which she replied, “I have the heads
over here.” The rest, as they say, is history. At the following year’s
show, I entered the Balinese Dancer. She didn’t win anything, but one
of the judges insisted that I must write a tutorial on her
construction. I did and it ran in The Gourd Magazine, the official
publication of the National Gourd Society.
I had attempted to make dolls prior to this little dancer, but can
only conclude that I was using the wrong materials. Cloth dolls were
quickly eliminated because I don’t sew well and seem able to make only
lumpy limbs. Clay seemed to be the only medium I felt simpatico with.
