Dollhouse Collection, Winter/Spring 2024
The Dollhouse Series is a collection of small things made with great love. I have loved dolls and dollhouses since I was a little girl, and in that respect, this series has been with me for a very long time. I guess you could say that I started gathering inspiration for this collection when I was 7 or 8, taking road trips with my mom to the doll store the next state over. At 10, as I poured over “Tiny Treasures” and built miniature rooms out of coffee stirrers, the ideas for this series were already taking shape. The Dollhouse Series was with me at 12, as I saved my allowance for a Laura Ashley decorator dollhouse, and at 13, as I (secretly) continued to play with American Girl dolls and Barbies for far longer than my peers.
Years later, as a college student watching “The Royal Tenenbaums” for the first time, I was totally mesmerized by the cross-section illustrations of the Tenenbaum home. The illustrations inspired me to create my first (official) “Dollhouse Series” for a drawing class. I wish I’d saved more of my work from that series, but was able to find a few drawings- and while my work has changed a lot since then, I recognized them right away as small things made with great love.
As I reflect on the artwork I’ve created over the past year and a half, it feels, in a way, like a homecoming. Throughout my past few collections, the common thread has been nostalgia- memories from my childhood and from growing up. When I was home for Christmas, my mom handed me a trunk of my American Girl doll things for my daughter, and as we went through them together, I was struck by the fact that so much of what I was seeing (chintz, wicker- or, as my mom wrote on one of the boxes, “more wicker- UGH!!”, quilts, florals, lace, little handmade details…) is what I still love and am drawn to now, as an adult- in what I consume, but also in what I create.
My ten-year-old self would be over the moon to know that this is what “work” looks like for me at thirty-four- creating paper dolls and paper dollhouses. In that respect, all of my artwork, but especially this series, feels like a love letter to my childhood self.
I know I say it every time, but I cannot thank you enough for being here, for following along, and for supporting my childhood dream. I hope that this collection surprises and delights- it has been such a fun one for me.
