Figurine of a child
That’s how I describe my dolls. And this drawing I made years ago is the actual INSPIRATION for my dolls how they look nowadays. I like it when they – as the children in my drawings – are wearing a doll or a bear in their hands or maybe holding their pet on a leach. So now you know where it comes from.. With hands designed and constructed they convincingly can hold a fine leash..
Using the same material and the fact that it’s handcrafted, does that justify the claim that my dolls would be ‘Waldorf inspired’? A Waldorf doll, as I know it, is supposed to be a very basic, schematic representation of a human being.
Though this doesn’t really apply to a doll with a sculpted head like mine which I developed in the 00’s.
Waldorf?
What makes a doll a waldorf doll? Certain rules have to be followed. First of all there is – indeed - the use of natural (warm) materials . How the head should be achieved with the unavoidable ‘eye line ‘ by which the doll is immediately recognisable as being ‘Waldorf’; of course the hair embroidered with woollen yarn; the slight indication of eye and mouth and certainly no nose. So the head as nondescript and barren as the hands are mitten-like and bulky. Except the stress upon the right proportions and scale there is little more to follow. One thing though is paramount: Keeping it simple. With regards to the child that will be able to transmit its own emotions and feelings onto the expressionless face of the doll. With regards to the making: So any parent will be able to craft a toy for his/her child, and by doing so pouring lots of love.
The moment you start sculpting the head, we enter the realm of an artistic discipline with its own rules, that should be applied to – in the case we are speaking of – the whole figure. So sculpting the head means sculpting the other, visible body-parts as well. Using the pattern of traditional Waldorf mitten like hands for a doll, while the head is sculpted… Is combining two opposing visual concepts. It clashes in my point of view.
The sculpting can be simple and mere indicating or realistic. It’s rather a matter of taste. One can decide for an eye inserted in the well known interlock with eyelids, glass eyeball, lashes and brows or, being aware of the dangers of the uncanny valley and what Freud said about the eeriness of art imitating nature, stick to an embroidered dot for an eye. Real Waldorf you think? Sure, a Waldorf doll has this feature. But so do my drawings. This is purely my visual language.
It’s always surprising to see how the mere positioning of that simple dot can bring a - simple - sculpted face to speak without attempting to be realistic. Focussing on the right proportions, scale, pose and treating the figure as an entity are, in my opinion, more helpful in evoking liveliness.
The mannequin
The figure of a child I represent is always a dressed child. As I told you before my doll-making stems from the frantic practise of inventing and making clothes and dress up clothes for my children when little.
Rather then putting much focus on sculpting the naked body, underneath their clothes my figures play their part as a doll, a toy to play with, to hold, to put down sitting (because of the hip joints) and to change clothes (made easy by the sloppy arms) . So no buttocks, no bellybuttons.
In that sense my figurines are very mannequin-like.
And I make them as pretty as can be.
About the maker
Aldegonde Ceelen is an Amsterdam based doll maker and designer of miniature clothes. Her dolls are one of a kind and free-standing - like statuettes. They are made entirely of natural materials. (Aldegonde graduated in book illustration at the art academy of Maastricht and has an MSc degree in art history from the University of Amsterdam.)
