Smeenk Dolls

I’m featured in my hometown paper, the Fairfield Daily Republic! 

http://www.dailyrepublic.com/features/entertainment/such-a-doll-lisa-smeenks-creations-are-offbeat-and-strange/

I expected just a sentence or two mention in a broader article but it turned out to be a full feature on my dolls.  Thank you Amy Maginnis-Honey for writing a fun and flattering article, and photographer Brad Zweerink for driving out and taking some great photos!

New Show…
I’ll be at the Lawler House in Suisun City tomorrow (Sat, Aug 5) for the opening of the new show. A number of dolls will be on display. Please come in!

“People and Places”

Through Oct. 31
Lawler House Gallery, 718 Main St., Suisun City
Noon to 4 p.m. Friday through Sunday
Free
http://www.lawlerhousegallery.org

Lisa’s Miss Anna Laupin just came back from the Fairfield Visual Arts Association’s 2011 annual Juried Art Show.

Her dress is made of silk, mohair and corriedale fleece. Her necklace is jasper and iridescent glass. She’s 22 inches tall and stands on a heavy “barnstar” type architectural anchor plate.

From the show’s opening night:

Lady: “What is she?”

Lisa: “A couture bunny”

Lady: “Yup, she is a cute bunny.”

Not everyone gets our stuff

All the material for the dress came from  A Verb for Keeping Warm. We’re lucky to live a couple miles from the actual physical store, but they have a great web store as well. Until recently they sold out of a garage, open once a week. They’ve always been friendly so it was nice to see them open a large, beautiful store – wood beams on the ceiling, gobs of inspiring stuff.

Getting the website tidy is taking a back seat this week  to finishing this piece in time for submission to an upcoming show.

I’m making the horse and buggy while Lisa made the couple riding in the buggy. She just finished them last night – they’re perfect! I’ll post photos when I have some decent ones since the snapshots I took didn’t begin to do them justice.

The horse is formed, just needs to get a mane and tail, be bent into the correct shape, and the typical tidying up, while I haven’t figured out how to make the harness yet:

You have to ignore the small cutting board it’s stuck to – we have a beautiful piece of wood to mount the whole thing on.

The head… Oh, needs ears, too, doesn’t it? How’d I forget them? Sorry horse. How do I say that in horsey sign language since he can’t hear me?

The buggy, also not quite finished:

PanVera

Our joint entry in the Fairfield Visual Arts Assoc. 2011 Juried Art Show… we won 2nd place! Or maybe 2nd in mixed media, it really wasn’t clear. Either way, it was exciting to win. We work well together, only occasionally throwing things or poking each other with felting needles.

PanVera

Teeth!

Today I drove Gaetia to her new temporary home at the Lauler House Gallery in Suisun, where she’ll be staying while a part of their new show “Spirits and Symbols”

Gaetia

Lisa’s Wugi thrives on loquats and saves the beautiful seeds in a bag.

Lisa’s Stuart is made from mohair, shark fur, diamonds and fluffy stuff found under the couch. Actually he’s just one of them fluffy things.  Seems he crawled under there from somewhere. Just don’t let on that you know. He gets all weird about it.

Mohair, Shark Fur, Fluffy Stuff, Diamonds and a stolen Harley

Stuart: angora wool over wool, on found motorcycle (metal, plastic) approx. 20″, 2006. Lisa Smeenk.

By far the simplest little things either of us have made, but we both love Yuri Norstein‘s Tale of Tales (or Yuriy Norshteyn’s Skazka Skazok if you prefer).

Syeryenkiy Volchok from Tale of Tales

This Little Grey Wolf is taken from Nortstein’s first drawing of the character, as found in the book Yuri Norstein and Tale of Tales, An Animator’s Journey.

If you haven’t seen it, watch it! Beautiful!