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Illinois USA

Beryl Moon

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"Beryl Moon"

My entry for the EBSQ "What a Doll" show features an original Art Doll, "Beryl Moon", created from all re-purposed disposable materials, and inspired by the poem, "The Moon Was But a Chin of Gold", by Emily Dickinson.....

I really despise waste, trying my best to avoid it in life whenever I can. For this reason, I've been hoarding for years a collection of broken plastic toys, barbies and action figures leftover from my kids' childhoods, with the intention of incorporating these creatively into my artwork in the spirit of Re-purposeful Reuse. A project begun years ago, it is thanks to this exhibit's theme that I was motivated to dig out one of my on-going, in-progress Art Dolls from my studio back-burner (see detail photo), and finish it to completion specifically for this show.....

Buried deep inside 'Beryl Moon', under Celluclay (a commercial paper clay product) and layers of paper mache, is a wee 'injured' action figure, but a few inches tall, and missing an arm. Spared from a landfill life, he now provides some inner armature for this Art Doll, though little of him is actually recognizable anymore, given that an entirely new being was sculpted over and around his original form, using re-purposed items (including but not limited to: a plastic cup, multiple plastic cup lids, and newspaper), for a complete and thorough transformation. A whole new, crescent-moon shaped head was sculpted from Celluclay and attached (the head of the original figure/doll ends somewhere deep within in the present neck/chest area), along with a newly sculpted arm, and new hands. In addition to gaining inches in height (now standing about a foot tall), "he' also became a 'she', complete with a newly sculpted bosom, as well as a big, bustled and flowing skirt of Stars -- using as my inspiration the following poem, "The Moon Was But a Chin of Gold", by the wonderful and talented poet, Emily Dickinson....:

The Moon was but a Chin of Gold
A Night or two ago.
And now she turns Her perfect Face
Upon the World below.

Her Forehead is of Amplest Blonde
Her Cheek, a Beryl hewn,
Her Eye unto the Summer Dew
The likest I have known.

Her Lips of Amber never part
But what must be the smile,
Upon Her Friend she could confer
Were such Her Silver Will.

And what a privilege to be
But the remotest Star.
For Certainty She take Her Way
Beside Your Palace Door.

Her Bonnet is the Firmament
The Universe, Her Shoe
The Stars, the Trinkets at Her Belt
Her Dimities....of Blue.