Constance Eileen King, in her Dolls and Dolls' Houses (1977), describes the doll above (Figure 1) as a 'French bisque-headed doll with jointed body, fixed eyes and open mouth. The original costume is very decorative. Marked "* 95" for Phoenix Baby'. King's description is doll-collection speak, and shows a particular way of looking at dolls, one which typically identifies the country of origin (French), the name of the dollseries (Phoenix Baby), materials of which the doll is made (head made of bisque, a kind of unglazed porcelain) and any identifying marks it might have, with a particular emphasis on dress and head. This type of doll is usually referred to as a bebe, a word registered by French and German manufacturers by 1850 to describe a doll suggesting a child somewhere between the ages of four and twelve. The Liebe (in Figure 1) is a doll allright, but it is a very particular kind of doll, and gives a very particular idea of what a doll is. This doll represents perhaps the most nostalgically stereotypical idea of a doll: it shows a little girl in a pretty dress. If one goes and looks at the range of more modern dolls which clutter the shelves in toy stores--Ginny, Barbie, Cindy, Baby Dribbles, My First Baby, Action Man, Skydancer, Polly Pocket, Cabbage Patch Dolls, Spice Girls dolls, Power Rangers and Star Trek dolls, Furbies, to mention a few--one finds that dolls come representing a huge variety of different ages, social classes, ethnic and national backgrounds, occupations, hobbies. They are made of a variety of materials and combinations of materials; wood, leather, cloth, metal, composition (strengthened papier meiche), celluloid, plastic, wax, porcelain, stone. Often they are also what we might call borderline or fantasy human figures, half-monsters, three quarter animals, one third machines, in various combinations. Even though the French bebe might be immediately recognisable as a doll, and would conform to a conventional idea of a doll, it is by no means a typical doll. There is no typical doll.

Thesis (M.A.) in History--University of Maine, 2007. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 96-100).

Preserving Psychick Order is an investigation into the subliminal, of a body processing trauma and transition. I explore how my mind and body filter memory, fear, and the impact of the past into the present. Since childhood, making dolls has been a way for me to express complex feelings, especially as they relate to dynamics between biological and found family. By tenderly modeling dolls after my own transforming physical features and mental processes, I make connections between the effects of my mind on my body and vice versa. I like to describe the resulting forms as queer monsters trying to camouflage themselves poorly in my parents’ home in rural Georgia. Unconscious becomes conscious, inside moves outward, and unmasking realizes the self and the trickster within.

Thesis (M.A.), English,Creative Writing--University of Central Oklahoma, 2007. / A novel.

No description available.

This body of work is the result of practice based research, culminating in a collection of five garments featuring pictorial prints, created through digital sublimation printing¹. The accompanying exegesis examines the place of my work within the contextual framework of related knowledge. The exegesis explores two main contextual notions. Firstly, the position of dolls' clothing play as a hegemonic tool in the process of learning to construct identity through self-presentation. This reflects on the practice of enculturing in girls the ability not just to do, but to observe oneself whilst doing. Secondly, the role of garments and fabric as liminal² markers at the transitional space between interior and exterior, domestic and public, self and not-self. My analysis is centered on the creation of original pieces of clothing. The garments are questioned by the issues explored in this exegesis. The research makes an original contribution to the body of knowledge by the nature of the creative work, and its analysis involving contemporary theoretical debate on the nature of fashion. ¹ Sublimation printing is a method of chemically bonding ink to a polyester or acrylic surface such as fabric, using extremely high heat and pressure. In this research project I am bonding images of photographs to polyester and acrylic fabrics. ² In this exegesis I use the word liminal to describe an occupying of an ambiguous space, on the threshold between one thing and another.

In this thesis I explore and evaluate the grounds upon which we can claim that community and activist art makes a difference in peoples’ lives. To do so, I examine an ongoing art project that seeks to transform the lives of American women with HIV/AIDS through artistic creation, the STITCHES Doll Project. To evaluate the efficacy of the Project, I position the Project in relation to the history of HIV/AIDS in America, popular and medical understandings of the illness, connections between HIV/AIDS and oppressive structures, representations of the illness, as well as Western conceptions of embodiment, illness, and identity. Against this history, I provide visual and textual analyses of several of the works produced through the STITCHES Doll Project, in combination with interviews and reports from participants themselves, to determine how these dolls affect these women’s sense of self and agency. This thesis argues that Western understandings of the meaning of HIV/AIDS, combined with its physical, emotional, social, and psychological effects, violently erodes a sense of self for those who contract the illness. Specifically, I argue that because identity in the West is predicated upon self-control, self-containment, mental control, and a repression of embodiment, illness, and death, HIV/AIDS has been experienced at both a personal and cultural level as corrosive of identity. In response to such pain, the STITCHES Doll Project provides an opportunity for HIV+ women to use a variety of strategies to re-establish their identity. Strategies such as sharing the illness or displacing it, when enacted through the Project, can successfully assist in re-affirming identity for participants. I suggest that this is where the value of the Project is best situated, and that this case study provides reason to believe in the value and power of community and activist art. Nevertheless, the Project’s success at individual, social, political, and pedagogical levels is tempered by the challenges posed by cultural codes, discourses, institutions, and practices. In light of this, my research explores how negotiation of these cultural codes, norms and practices helps to both re-build, as well as un-do, identity for participants. / Thesis (Master, Art History) -- Queen's University, 2009-09-29 14:29:09.34

This body of work is the result of practice based research, culminating in a collection of five garments featuring pictorial prints, created through digital sublimation printing¹. The accompanying exegesis examines the place of my work within the contextual framework of related knowledge. The exegesis explores two main contextual notions. Firstly, the position of dolls' clothing play as a hegemonic tool in the process of learning to construct identity through self-presentation. This reflects on the practice of enculturing in girls the ability not just to do, but to observe oneself whilst doing. Secondly, the role of garments and fabric as liminal² markers at the transitional space between interior and exterior, domestic and public, self and not-self. My analysis is centered on the creation of original pieces of clothing. The garments are questioned by the issues explored in this exegesis. The research makes an original contribution to the body of knowledge by the nature of the creative work, and its analysis involving contemporary theoretical debate on the nature of fashion. ¹ Sublimation printing is a method of chemically bonding ink to a polyester or acrylic surface such as fabric, using extremely high heat and pressure. In this research project I am bonding images of photographs to polyester and acrylic fabrics. ² In this exegesis I use the word liminal to describe an occupying of an ambiguous space, on the threshold between one thing and another.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--McMaster University, 2004. / Advisor: Dr. T. Nicks. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 270-293).

This thesis presents the results of a survey conducted to determine the need and benefits of a toy loan center.