First Finish in Quite Awhile

Last week, I did something I haven’t done in awhile. Aside from wrecking my middle finger for awhile, I also randomly walked into my craft room, grabbed one of my antique doll projects and started working on her. I don’t know why I did it, but I did…and aside from the pain, it reignited my antique doll habit.

Don’t worry, it won’t last long. My old doll habit has been with me since I was in 4th grade or so. But it wasn’t until about ten years ago that I got into antique dolls. I don’t even remember what the initial reason was. At the time, the earliest dolls I had were from the 40s. I picked up one from the 30s at a thrift store. Then, another from the 20s at a flea market.

And then I went to a doll show. While most of the dolls were modern and completely uninteresting to me, I got to come face to face with dolls from 1910 back to about 1860 or so. I was utterly mesmerized. They were so different back then. Yeah, I’d seen china dolls before, but not the bisque ones with glass eyes, not the ones with heads made of wax, papier mache, celluloid, even metal. They were a whole new world…

Then, there was this place called eBay…where I could buy antique dolls at a fraction of their price if they were incomplete or broken. I could even buy piece by piece until I got a whole doll–some assembly required.

This unintentionally led to a bizarre doll parts collection much like the kind a doll hospital would need to have on hand for repairs except that I am far from a professional doll doctor. I just assemble dolls as I get the parts. Yeah, I’ve got a list of necessary parts and work for each doll I’ve collected, but I never focus on just one. I guess I’m more into the spontaneity, I don’t really know for sure.

Anyway, last week after the finger incident, I went back in my craft room and started looking at all the girls laying there in various states of disarray. I found one that needed eyes, wig and dress. The eyes were in a little plastic cup sitting inside a wig right next to her. Did she really only need a dress? Didn’t I just get a bunch of dresses from eBay? I started looking and sure enough, while it wasn’t the best for her, it fit and didn’t look horribly wrong.

So, before dinner, I busted out the plaster and did a little eye-setting job. This morning, I cleaned up a few rough spots, patched a tiny hole I found on her leg, dressed her and voila! Project no more.

On the note I’d written probably two years ago that was sitting next to her, I wrote that she was a Kestner 141? Yeah, question mark. I don’t know what led me to believe that she is a Kestner 141. She’s only marked 14/0 in a circle on her back. Maybe whoever I bought her from thought she is a Kestner 141. I suppose I could look her up in one of my doll identification guides. It really doesn’t matter too much to me anyway. I just think she’s a great addition to my collection.

And who knows, maybe altering her appearance might wake up an old ghost or two in her. I haven’t tried to get EVPs with her yet. I suppose I’ll try when I work my way through my collection. I’ll be busy for quite awhile!

December 1987

I have no idea if I did any pieces between July and December of 1987, but I’m pretty sure I got a new set of markers for Christmas!

If I remember correctly, this was also an experiment into what it would be like to use 4 colors instead of 3. I think it turned out okay, but could’ve been better. Oh well.

Here’s December 1987…

Hear Me Out

I’ve already covered scent, so now I’m on to hearing. I don’t have witnesses to the actual experiences I had, but others have reported the same things at different times.

I’ll start with the earliest audient one I remember. I was about 12 or 13. I’d spent the night at my best friend’s house. She had three cats at the time and when they wanted to come in to her bedroom when the door was closed, they’d scratch at the door or meow or sometimes both. A few times, when I’d get up to let one in, I’d see nothing but tail and back end running down the hallway.

She shared a room with her sister and it was at the end of the hallway. The nearest door was about fifteen feet away, so if a cat was going to scratch and ditch, it’d have a ways to run before hooking a right turn into the bathroom. Beyond that was her brother’s room, which was beyond the point where the cats could slip through the railing in order to use the stairs as an escape route.

But they rarely scratched and ditched.

That morning, we were engaged in girltalk. Me, being closest to the door, assumed that since I heard the telltale scratch, a cat must want in and I should get it. However, the sound was a bit odd. I almost wasn’t sure I’d heard it. While it definitely came from the direction of the door, it still sounded a bit strange to me for some reason. In fact, when I got up to answer the door, my best friend looked at me sort of sideways, wondering why I’d gotten up so suddenly.

I opened the door and no cat was there. Not even tail and backside scurrying away.

We thought it was weird that I’d heard the “cat”, but she didn’t. Apparently, all the women in her house had either had the same experience I did or tripped over a shadow cat on the stairs in the middle of the night when the rest of the household cats were accounted for in other parts of the house or had stayed outside.

While I believed in ghosts, I really didn’t want this kind of thing happening around me. I’m weird enough as it is, I don’t need supernatural stuff going on around me, too. Although, I also have to admit there are times when I just didn’t want to be alone and thankfully, ’someone’ was always there. Usually my grandfather, but there were others, too. I worked in theaters for a decade and every theater has at least one ghost.

At a certain theater, I only had the opportunity to do one show. It was late in 1995…around Christmas. I can do sound, lighting, set construction, costuming, special effects and props. I’m basically a one-woman show backstage. On this particular show, I was a lighting technician and then during the shows, I operated a follow spot. Anyhow, I was brought in a little late to the game. The show was already designed and the lights were hung. I was assigned to adjust the focus of a few lights and hang a special.

I was up in the catwalks all by myself. There was only one other person there at the time and he was nowhere near the stage. I don’t recall if he was in the scene shop or had gone out to the storage shed outside near his car. I just know he wasn’t around.

I can focus a light with the rest of the lights on, but it’s a whole lot easier to isolate the one I’m focusing, so I had very few lights on. The stage was mostly dark, as was the house.

I hung the light, plugged it in, went into the light booth to bring up the dimmer and went back to the catwalk to focus.

Step step step step step step. Stop.

’Someone’–who sounded like a man wearing dress shoes–had just walked from stage left out to the middle of the stage and stopped. Was this ’someone’ about to audition for a play? I saw no one. I wasn’t even sure I was hearing what I heard until the third or fourth step. I ’sensed’ activity, but I wasn’t in a position to really dive in. I mean, this was my first show at this place and at the time, yeah, I was sensitive (always have been), but that doesn’t mean I always use my sense nor do I always seek out activity. In fact, up there in the unfamiliar, darkened theater, I was kind of scared.

I sighed and went on with my work anyway. When my boss came back, I asked him if he’d heard the footsteps before.

“Yep. That’s George. No one knows how he got here. He also likes to turn on the house lights in the middle of shows. Other people have bigger stories about him, but he’s only done the footsteps for me.” (Yes, most of us theater people are quite nonchalant about the ghosts we “work” with.)

Sure enough, out of twelve performances, he turned the houselights on four times. There was a fifth time that could’ve been someone backstage, so I’m leaving that one out. Part of the training for a light board operator there was to be ready with the houselights because the slider would be all the way down. First, you’d have to realize that the houselights had come on, then press the button to take control, bring the slider up and back down again. It usually took three to five seconds, but that can be a long time when the audience is wondering what in the world is going on.

Although not an audient experience, there was also a blue glow that sometimes appeared in the furthest corner of the light booth. I hated going into that area whether night or day. If I had to grab equipment, I did it as quickly as possible. I only saw the glow once and I wasn’t really sure of it because some of the onstage lights were on and could’ve been reflecting off the front glass of the booth.

Except the blue glow was its own light, backlighting the light board operator’s chair, and one of the equipment shelves.

To me, George–and whoever else was there–was unhappy. I never sensed anything positive except when mischief was happening and even then it was more like vicious humor. I think he liked to see people being scared. When I ran the follow spot for the show, I stayed away from the rear wall of the light booth. That was where I felt the greatest despair. I also did my best not to be in there alone. I wasn’t afraid that something bad would happen to me, I was afraid of what I might see (psychically or physically), what I might learn about the source of the despair.

Theaters attract people who want to make it big. There’s nothing like hearing an audience roar with applause after a show, when all the focus is on you. It’s unreal. The sad truth is that there isn’t enough time in a single lifetime for every actor to get more than fifteen minutes of fame. So, I’m guessing some stick around beyond their lifetime, still hoping for their big break.

Although, not all theater ghosts are actors or stagehands. How do I know this? Well, that’s a whole other story I’ll share later, I promise. It’s one of my favorites.

April Fool’s Day was early for me

So, I had literally a couple minutes before I needed to leave for yoga class. Earlier in the day, I’d embarked upon a sort of odd project. I’d gotten a messed up antique doll on ebay probably a year or more ago. This particular doll had been the victim of a bad eye-setting job…and whoever’d done it used some sort of permanent, hard goop. Usually, you get the head a little wet and the plaster falls right out. Not this time. (I forgot to take a “before” pic. Darnit.)

I soaked this one in lacquer thinner and it sort of made a difference, but not really. The goop got a slightly mushy…enough that I was able to scrape out most of the trouble and only one of the eyes broke, but it wasn’t catastrophic. I can glue the eye back together and the seam probably won’t even show once that eye is installed.

Aside from the crooked eyes that I absolutely will not tolerate in my collection unless they were set crookedly at the factory back in the 1890s, this doll head had already been glued together once. I pulled that poor repair of her shoulders and part of the back of her head apart so I could get at the eyes a little easier. While I scraped, I discovered another two hairline cracks in her forehead…the hard way. Oh well. What’s done is done.

Okay, now here we are back to the initial paragraph… Two minutes before I was to leave for yoga class, I went back out to the garage to do a little more scraping for good measure while the mystery goop was still a tiny bit mushy. I got off a couple big chunks and was about to pick up my mat and head out.

But, just one more scrape…

OUCH!!!!!

I took the following pic two days later… after Krazy Gluing my finger back together. Notice the nice sharp point of the bisque porcelain? That was a hard stop against my knuckle. There’s a dime-size patch where I can’t feel anything and I’m of the opinion that’s a damn good thing. The joint and bone still hurt like crazy. The whole finger is swollen and won’t bend all the way, but at least the gash has sealed back up thanks to the Krazy Glue. It turned a little purple and green for a few days, but now aside from the lack of full bending ability, the dull pain is at a minimum. I haven’t tried to get my ring off, though. I shudder just thinking about it!

Why do I go through the torture? Well, honestly it has been quite a long time since last I really hurt myself. My husband and various friends hate me for that, too. I’m always so careful. When I worked in the scene shop, co-workers were amazed how I could wallow in paint, dirt, glue and sawdust all day but still manage to go home without wrecking my clothes. I’ve had close calls with the table saw, radial arm saw and did a nice manicure with the band saw once. I’m just like that. Somehow I stay out of trouble. So when something like this happens, I take it like karma and simply pay my dues.

Also, though, this doll is a mold #154, supposedly made by JD Kestner, one of the finest German manufacturers of the day. There aren’t a whole lot of these girls running around and dog gone it, I think she’s pretty.

Plus, she’ll be a great bigger sister to another project 154 I have if I ever get her finished. This little cutie just needs a body, wig and dress. But you see why the broken 154 is worth it. She’s gorgeous.

The broken one needs gluing, resetting the eyes, patching the body, reattaching the arms and a dress if I don’t already have one laying around, but she’s actually closer to being done than the little one. I tend to only put antique heads on antique bodies, so sometimes it takes awhile to find just the right body. I’ve had the small head for almost ten years now. I haven’t actively looked for another body, but still that’s an awful long time to sit on my shelf.

So my April Fool’s Day foolish stunt happened a little early this year, but that’s okay. I was able to go to yoga class and managed not to bleed everywhere, so that was good. I have also reactivated my interest in working on my collection–which I think was the real ‘reason’ I was given this karmaic injury.

I’ve got plenty to work on. These are the ones unfit to display:

Some are closer to done than others. Some were solely purchased very cheaply for a challenge and practice. This can be an expensive hobby, so I tend to stick to the girls who’ve been heavily played with or otherwise damaged. I’d hate to see their history be forgotten just because they’re cracked up or paint is flaking off. These were all toys at one point and in many cases, they were probably the ONLY toy a little girl had. That’s kind of neat to me.