The Doll Project is now on Fine Art America

 As I mentioned last month, The Doll Project had to find a new home. Now you can order prints from this series on Fine Art America. 

Unfortunately, the other product selections are limited compared to some other print-on-demand services, but they do make tote bags.

(Also, I want to apologize in advance that some items in my shop don't work with the aspect ratio of the products they're displayed on. They were automatically generated and I don't want them, but I can't get rid of them. Please ignore them.)

I may also see if I can work with a few other print-on-demand sites, and when I do, I will make an announcement here.

My first international art show

My first international art show opens today! Two photos from The Doll Project are being exhibited as part of the Dolling up the lens: Barbie exhibition in the PH21 photography gallery in Budapest, Hungary. Here's more about the show:

The Barbie phenomenon, spanning over six decades, has left an indelible mark on our culture. It has been a source of inspiration, sparking imaginations, while also evoking strong criticism for its potential impact on body image, self-perception, and identity. Unlike traditional dolls, Barbie emerged as an adult figure, presenting a complete spectrum of allure and sexuality, thus embodying a symbol of beauty and desire. Barbie's world-building transcended mere play; it resembled the art of theater production and film direction, akin to the creative process behind staged photography. Barbie, in her own right, can be seen as an early physical avatar, foreshadowing the virtual avatars prevalent in today's digital realm. Even contemporary video games draw upon the imaginative foundations laid by Barbie. In this call, we invite photographers to explore the multifaceted world of Barbie, embracing both its positive and critical dimensions.

The show will be on view from today through January 6th, 2024, so if you or someone you know happens to be in Budapest, stop by before it closes!

My thoughts on Barbie The Movie

[SPOILER ALERT: this post contains spoilers for the 2023 Barbie movie.]

I never wanted to watch movies about Barbies as a kid because I felt no need to see them. As I wrote about in detail in The Doll Project, the official character traits and storylines Mattel had assigned to Barbie, her sisters, and her friends were wholly irrelevant to the roles and relationships I had imagined the dolls in my collection to have. Some were heroines and some were villains. Some were single career women and some were married. Some had biological children and some adopted. And sometimes I changed my mind about who my Barbie characters were or improvised when playing with my cousins and friends.

It wasn't until I was well into adulthood that I began watching Barbie media, adding it to the mix of silly kids shows that I watch to relax. Some people unwind with reality TV; I've always preferred cartoons. So when the news about Barbie: The Movie came out, I was actually looking forward to seeing it. I had enjoyed Barbie: Life in the Dreamhouse and Barbie: It Takes Two. My skepticism about The Lego Movie and Trolls had been unwarranted, as it turned out, and I found both toy-based movies to actually be insightful, heartwarming, and rewatchable entertainment for my inner child.

As a doll collector, I was thrilled to see all the new movie tie-ins. These are two of my favorites:

I was excited to dress up and go to the movies since I haven't been to a theater since 2020.

 

I went with 2 of my cousins and 1 of my friends. Aside from the excitement of seeing a film in person again, the spectacle of a Barbie world on a big screen was captivating. The costume and production design were impeccable. The soundtrack was great. However...

Something didn't curl all the way over for me...

I couldn't quite put my finger on it...

But something was missing.

It lacked a certain je ne sais quoi.

I appreciated the feminist theme throughout the film. If horrible men like Ben Shapiro hate it, I thought, it must be good. But as a Barbie collector who also studied many forms of storytelling—from fiction writing to playwriting to screenwriting—I was very disappointed with they the way the movie's elements came together.

There have been too many good movies about toys for this one to be so muddled. The Toy Story, Lego Movie, and Wreck-It Ralph series have all cleverly played with the idea of toys and video game characters having minds of their own that the humans playing with them cannot perceive. There have been too many good models of a fish-out-of-water character from a more innocent world coming face-to-face with our sometimes ugly reality—like my beloved Elf where Buddy the Elf leaves the tidy little community that Santa and his elves have built for themselves in the North Pole to live in gritty early 2000s New York City—for this one to execute the trope so poorly. I also think there was a missed opportunity for Ken to be a lovable hapless himbo who stumbles into success somehow, like a cross between Zoolander and Forrest Gump.

Instead, Mattel has given us a motley assortment of plot elements that kind of remind me of the loose parts you might find at the bottom of a toy box. It just occurred to me that the examples I gave in the previous paragraph are from films with male main characters. Maybe the Barbie writers were so focused on making points about the main character's gender that they lost the plot. Yes, the film is feminist, but what wave of feminism are they referencing, anyway? Nowadays, as more expansive notions of gender come into play, what is the point of fixating on a Barbie/Ken binary? Furthermore, why does Barbie's world have a gendered hierarchy? Why are the Kens and Barbies playing a zero-sum game? Why can't they share power? Why is Mattel ignoring their own products and acting like Ken dolls haven't had their own careers since the '60s?

It's also unclear who Barbie the movie is ultimately for. Its gender politics are a bit outdated for modern audiences, despite America Ferrera's outstanding monologue about the difficulty of being a woman in the world. The Kens drink copious beers after they take over, but the Mattel executives are very cartoonish in their chase scenes. President Barbie hilariously drops an f-bomb that is bleeped and censored by a Mattel logo and the Ruth Handler character speaks openly about her arrest for tax evasion, but the grown-up humor stands out because the story feels so immature. And all of this culminates in an ending that I found unsatisfying, despite its refutation of what I wrote in The Doll Project about Barbie looking so happy because she doesn't have to worry about things like breast cancer, PMS, and menstrual cramps. She has chosen to be human, but why? She has chosen to live in the real world, but why? Because the writers are obviously human and live in the real world? What's her motivation?

It seems as though Mattel is seeking to humorously deconstruct one of its most popular intellectual properties while still trying to sell us as much stuff as possible through a seemingly endless assortment of brand partnerships. But post-deconstruction, it doesn't reconstruct anything interesting, and it never considers that toys are what kids make of them. Children breathe life into them and it is their wild imaginations and not the text on the back of a bright pink plastic package that determine how things work in the multiverse of imagined Barbie worlds. Barbie and Ken can be anything, and the possibilities for storytelling with these miniature mannequins are endless, but you would never know that from this movie. If only they put as much effort into writing this film as they did into marketing it.

 

 

 

 

10 things turning 10 this year

The bleakness of the weather and my personal life led me to hibernate for the winter. My hibernation entailed coming straight home after work to exercise, cook, and read. I saved my studio time for the weekends. When 2011 began, I was afraid to dream, and I didn't want to want anything anymore. Wanting things would only lead to disappointment.
 
(from Imperfect Things)

 

I'd rather not even bother looking back at 2020. I almost wrote a retrospective about it, but decided not to. Why dredge up so much misery? Instead, I'm looking back 10 years ago to 2011, a year that I began by deliberately setting no particular goals other than the aforementioned plan of self-imposed winter hibernation. Interestingly, I was able to accomplish a great deal in 2011, not by setting lofty goals for myself, but by just taking things a day at a time. And I think that hibernation period was good preparation for my current social distancing hermitage. Here are 10 things turning 10 this year, in no particular order:

 

1. My artist statement for Post-Consumerism  

2011 was when I finally came up with an artist statement about Post-Consumerism that I found satisfactory. Here's my blog post about it.

2. Verdant 

Verdant still reminds me of ripe avocados.

3. Fall in Love With Art

 

2011 was the year I had my very first Fall in Love with Art event at my studio for Valentine's Day. A serendipitous discovery of a beautiful Black Barbie doll wearing a dress covered in red lipstick kisses (while wandering the aisles at Target) inspired me to create a photo series showcasing miniature artwork with a Valentine's Day theme.

 

4. Ruby Horizon

 

My second commissioned painting, Ruby Horizon, was made for my cousin's home.

 

5. Weeping May Endure for a Night 

 The final painting of the Dark Night of the Soul series.

6. Mod Era Doll Project Photos

 2011 was when I started to extend the timeline of The Doll Project series.

 

7. Composition in Primaries 

 Composition in Primaries was my first multicolor Post-Consumerist painting.

 

8. Frozen Bride 

 A visual depiction of what being in a long engagement can feel like.

9. Flower Power Collage

 

I made this collage in the spring of 2011 when my outlook on life was improving. There's no blog post about it, but it is available in my Zazzle store on variety of products.

10. Cerulean Rhapsody

Cerulean Rhapsody is still my biggest painting, made from the box my easel was shipped in, inspired by the color of my laptop (which is also turning 10 this year!). 

Finally, here's something turning 5 this year: my young adult novel, A Bitter Pill to Swallow. I published the final version January 20th, 2016. 

 

 

Looking back at 2011 helps me as I look forward in 2021. And hopefully this year will be better for all of us.

Mood Board Monday: this bedroom is pretty in pink

I designed this bedroom around my You Are Beautiful, Too! comforter. It's colorful with an emphasis on pink. Floral motifs are everywhere. The pink chandelier and faux fur chair give it a touch of sophistication, while the patterns I chose keep the overall look whimsical and fun.

Artwork by Vashti Harrison

The Doll Project: 10 Years Later

In the ten years since I was first inspired to create The Doll Project, I feel like it has become somewhat less relevant to the times, and that's a good thing. Between Mattel's addition of plus-size dolls to its line and the surging interest in the body positive movement, I feel like more people are questioning the oppressive social forces that I created The Doll Project to protest against.

I think overall our culture still has a long way to go, but the fact that these conversations are becoming more prevalent throughout both traditional and social media gives me hope.

My thoughts on the new Barbies

Since no one contacted me to find out my opinion on the newest development in fashion dolls, I will just write about it here. It's nice to see that Mattel is now making Barbie dolls in a variety of shapes and sizes. It took them long enough! They're probably only doing this because their sales have been abysmal in recent years. They have struggled to reinvent themselves. And finally, after years of petitions for plus-sized Barbies and criticism for the unrealistically proportioned dolls, they're making an effort. I think it's a step in the right direction. It's too bad they weren't around when I was taking pictures for The Doll Project. They would have been perfect for the You Are Beautiful,Too! poster. But at least I can get a few for my collection. I know exactly what I want for my birthday. I suppose some things never change. 

My three favorites.

A footnote:

As a collector, I think it will be interesting to see if they make enough clothes for the curvy dolls. Sad to think they will have the same issues real curvy women face when it comes to finding nice clothes that fit. Hopefully some of the talented miniature couturiers on Etsy will create beautiful doll clothes to fit them.

My new Zazzle store

I had been thinking about doing this for months, and finally did it yesterday: creating a new store on Zazzle!  Now you can get prints from The Doll Project in a wider range of styles and on an even greater variety of products.

I am so happy to be able to sell the You Are Beautiful Too! shirts in additional sizes, including maternity and plus sizes, because after all, that's what the message is all about.

See everything I have to offer at this link:
http://www.zazzle.com/thedollproject


UPDATE, 7/10

If you liked what I had to offer, you should have bought it yesterday. Zazzle has decided to delete all my images with Barbies on them because of their annoying policies regarding trademarks. Imagine where we'd be if Andy Warhol got in trouble with Campbell's soup or Brillo pads. I am really disappointed because I put a lot of time and effort into creating my new products and was really excited about having another possible stream of income. At least I can still sell my work on Society6. Hopefully they will keep adding interesting new products for us to print our images on. If you're interested, here's the e-mail Zazzle sent me:

Pretty in Patchwork

I'm pleased to announce the addition of two new additional products that bear the image of the You Are Beautiful, Too! poster: duvet covers and shower curtains. After struggling to come up with a design that would work for those formats, an idea came to me yesterday: patchwork. So I added squares of the fabric backdrops that were already part of the poster to fill in spaces between the dolls and to use as a border on the edges. I made two versions of this design, one with the "You Are Beautiful, Too!" text in big, bold, letters and a subtler version without a screaming banner of text.

All of them are now for sale in my Society6 store. I also added a few other prints that I had forgotten to upload earlier, including Corpse du Ballet, My So-Called Diet: Thinspiration 1994, and Edie on the Runway. I would love it if people actually bought these prints so I can make some money.

Imperfect Beauty

While speaking with an open studio visitor last year, I learned something important about my art. He found a connection between The Doll Project and Post-Consumerism that I had never noticed before. And that connection has to do with overcoming perfectionism. As I pondered the overlapping themes in my two disparate bodies of work, I decided that it would be great to have a solo show in which I could display both my photos and my paintings together. That is what the Imperfect Beauty show is all about.

This is the first show in which I have displayed the dolls and dioramas I used.

I am so grateful that L.H. Selman Glass Paperweight Auction House and Gallery was generous enough to let me use their display case.

 

Kinzie's dress is made of yellow cake with pink frosting. "The Doll Project" is spelled out in pink frosting on the platter she stands on.

Midge wanted to be part of the show, so I put her to work holding signs about the types of cake that were available.

I used a pink scarf as a table runner. Sadly I didn't get to eat any of that delicious cake. I was so busy. Plus, I don't like to have dairy products right before I sing.

That's right, I sang at my opening reception. I was the surprise musical performer.

I had planned to get cake afterwards, but I didn't have time. There was so much going on, tons and tons of musical performances (I think I booked too many acts) plus artist talks, plus selling books and artwork.

Overall, I think it went really well. It was a big, ambitious undertaking. Now I don't know what's next. I suppose I should take some time to relax, though knowing me, I'm not sure if it will actually happen.

If you're in Chicago, you can see the show until I take it down on the 30th.

Here are the details:

Imperfect Beauty
Second Floor Gallery
The Fine Arts Building
410 S. Michigan Ave.
Downtown Chicago

Building Hours:
Monday - Friday: 7 a.m. - 9 p.m.
Sundays: 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.