Learning to Listen

Many Years Ago.....

     I used to chuckle to myself and smile when my Great Grandmother's hearing aid would start to 'whistle'....it would take her a bit to realize it was whistling and turn it down....and I would wonder, it must be really noisy in there to her, for her to not hear that horrid whistle!  I could talk regular voice level and she always heard  me and understood what I said....so it wasn't like she was deaf.   Sometimes I think I get the same way~ there are just so many voices with an opinion of what I 'should' and shouldn't be doing....some my own, some not....others, I don't know where they come from but they are there none the less...

   I have wanted to do a peddlar dollye for a long time~ I have done several, but I want one for 'me'.  I carved out a bunch of little poupards last year, as she will be a doll seller...but I always have so much going on for others...she always gets put on the back burner and must be content to watch other dollys come and go. She is always such a good listener~ she just sits there and smiles at me with never a harsh word

   She will be my first all body solid mache dolly, and I am quite excited with her.  Here I am holding her, the dowel is going thru her hip joint holding her legs on. They are very crude as of yet~ I am waiting for the mache to dry fully before I carve them to final shape. As you can see, I sculpted her to be a painted eye girl.  The past few weeks however, she has not been content to just sit and listen to my ramblings gleefully......she has been doing everything to get my attention, even resorting to being down right frumpy at times....not at all like her normal self. Night after night she appeared in my dreams telling me the same thing, over and over....until I would listen.

   O Happye Daye! it is for me when dolly is in favorable temperament again. She did not want to have painted eyes....how could I not appease her plea to see?

 Doesn't she look so much happier now? I think yes!  It wasn't easy tho~ I have never inset eyes after sculpting....but actually, it was rather fun. We tried on several different color eyes~ light light blue....dark clear blue...a gorgeous pair of green but she didnt like those, so we settled on an early pair of very dark cognac brown glass eyes. First I cut out where I wanted her eyes to be on her face... this is the intital set of coarse, I will go back later and clean them up

 I then turned her over and carefully cut out the back of her head~ now most dollys have their pate at the top of the head, but shes mine, so why not make it where I could most easily get at the back of her eyes to set them in?  I hollowed out her head and after setting her eyes filled in behind them with more mache.

  I am thinking I need to write a little note...or perhaps put a dollar or something fun in there before I seal her all up again.  Once her wig is on, no one will ever know she had eye surgery ;)

 She is unique to her own self, and I wouldn't have it any other way.  When one learns how to listen to what drives them, great things can come of it. A soul can be living and getting by, but still be lost..until they listen to that 'something'...that 'it'...and then...well watch out world!