Doll-making workshop helps celebrate Women's History month

By: Teresa Sheffield

Posted: 4/7/08

Dolls are an important part of growing up for girls and for some boys. For years, our best friends were Barbie, Polly Pocket and Rainbow Bright; that is until they were replaced by shoes and The Backstreet Boys.

Last Saturday afternoon, at the African-American History and Culture House, students and women from around the community learned how to make their own dolls with a doll-making workshop run by the Culture House and local artist Nedra Bonds.

"Dolls are special for women," Bonds said. "They're probably our first toy. They have a spiritual meaning sometimes. We like to celebrate each other and our creativity, that's the point."

There were about 20 women in the workshop and most were excited to learn how to make dolls.

"You know, I have never made a doll before," said Crystal Kemp, a UMKC graduate student and staff member. "I did sew. I come from a family of sewers, so I've made clothes and stuff, but this is my first doll, and I hope she comes out beautiful. She'll have her own personality."

This workshop is a part of the Women's History month celebrations at the Culture House. It's also the fourth workshop in a series called The Artist's Workshop, where local artists share and teach their craft to UMKC students and the community.

"Women's art has been called arts and crafts, but only because women did it," Bonds said. "This is about raising that idea that what we do is who we are, so it's not about crafts, it's about our spirit. And that's what art is really about, what's inside comes out and is reflected back onto the world. That's what all of this is about."

Besides the doll workshop, the Culture House had a doll exhibit where local artists displayed their work. Arzie Umali, the program coordinator for the African-American History and Culture House said she hoped this exhibit would help legitimize women' s art.

"With a lot of media, crafts like doll-making, there is a fine line between what is a craft and what is fine art ... and I think what a lot of artists aredoing now is they're taking what was generally thought as a craft and heightening it up to fine art by adding a lot of creativity, a lot of artistic quality to a craft and also, it's just the way you view it," Umali said.

"That's what I feel like we can do with workshops like this. We're doing exhibits where we take a doll and put it up on a wall or put it in a display case, just like a piece of art."

tsheffield@unews.com