Thursday, January 15, 2009

Buried Dolls and Bottle Caps


I finally got to work with a couple of new things that I've been wanting to get my hands on. The first thing is a bisque doll body that was unearthed in Germany after being buried for almost a hundred years on the grounds of a doll factory. I bought the doll from my friend Julie (isthereashadow) in Australia and had first seen the dolls in the work of Nina Bagley. The history of the dolls intriqued me and I wanted to have one of my own to experiment with. I kept it around for about a month before I decided what to do with it. I had a vintage broach that reminded me of a wing, but I only had one, so as I pondered, the phrase, "a wing and a prayer" came to me. I stamped a silver rectangle with the word "prayer" and then I remembered a vintage silver plated cross that Steph (vladthebat) from Belgium had sent me, and so the piece started to come together. The parts came from all around the world and ended up in Tennesse to become this necklace.

The next new thing is that my hubby got me a doming block (did I spell that right? dome-ing) I had been wanting one for quite a while. I had seen jewelry made from domed bottle caps. I love using found objects for my art and I have a large collection of bottle caps. People save them for me and also I get many from a local country store that has a bottle opener on the door to the store with a container to catch the caps. They must think it is strange when I come in and ask to empty their caps. One day I'll have to show them what I make with them. The bracelets and necklace that inspired me were made by Ron Pascho and are seen in the Lark book: Fabulous Jewelry from Found Objects.
The book has inspired many of my pieces. I highly recommend it for technical, as well as creative inspiration. Here is my bottle cap necklace. The bottle cap pairs are tube riveted together.

5 comments:

Steph said...

Wowww cool jewelry! Love how you put together the first necklace! And what a great idea to use bottle caps ...I might give it a try one of these days and if you want I can send you bottle caps from here...

Ro Bruhn said...

I have a dapping block and that book but haven't tried to make the bottle top domes yet. Yours looks fabulous.

Julie H said...

Wow! What a perfect setting for the little doll.

and now I know why I borrowed the dapping blocks from design and technology workshop at school - fantastic.

cynthia korzekwa said...

dELiZiOsO!

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