Doll Head Art

If macabre art bothers you, then you should probably skip this post.

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A few months ago we saw this head collection at an art gallery in Nashville:

(art by Franne Lee)

Gerrick and I thought it was fascinating. He said he had some dolls he could use to make some, but later he decided he wouldn't be able to paint them as neatly as he wanted. I didn't push the matter because I knew he was right. He would have most likely gotten completely frustrated had he tried. I also knew doll head art would likely be revisited one day.

A few weeks ago a facebook friend posted a link to a Baby Head Paperweight. (She didn't like it.) As soon as I saw it, I knew Gerrick would want to make one.  I called him over, showed it to him, and he said, "OH, cool!  Let's make it! It's like treasure--part of an old gold statue!"  He had the head off of one of his dolls before I knew it. (Quite a difference from the time shortly after he had adopted it from the local Goodwill store when he was 16 months old when he cried his heart out because he dropped it on the sidewalk and I ran over it with the stroller, scraping up the side of it's naked body. It had to wear several band-aids for months!) But on this day, the doll's headless body became a walking monster, and soon it was trying on new heads (because it couldn't see where it was going).

Gerrick decided he liked the skull--a flashing light key chain, so we glued it on.

We filled the head with plaster per instructions and went to buy brown and gold spray paint.

This was his first experience with spray paint. He had a really hard time and asked me to help.  The brown paint took forever to dry--days and days! The project sort of lost momentum after this.  Eventually on St. Patrick's Day this week, he decided it was a good day to use the gold spray paint.  For some reason the gold paint dried instantaneously and so none of the brown paint was revealed to make the aged effect!  He didn't care, though.  He's happy with it just the way it is.  He put it on the base of his desk lamp in his bedroom.

Unique, huh?