Peach State Depression Glass Club
Meeting Highlights - October, 2006

When you mention the word "dolls", Barbie and Madame Alexander "play dolls" come to most everyone's mind. Since the 1980's, when the Cabbage Patch Kids went public, another type of doll has come to be a favorite, soft-sculptured dolls.

Most current soft-sculptured dolls are artist conceived and signed. Instead of being made of porcelain, vinyl, or composition, these lovely dolls are hand stitched from cloth to form the facial and body features. Homemade dolls have been made since the 1880's and certainly fall into this category. The term "soft-sculptured" generally applies to the artist signed dolls produced since the 1980's. Some soft-sculpture doll bodies start with an armature made of plastic or wire, and have cotton or other materials wrapped around it to form the body, arms, and legs. This type of doll can be posed since the arms, legs, and head can be moved. The Cabbage Patch Kids are completely stuffed with no armature. The facial features are either hand-stitched as were the original Cabbage Patch Kids, or the cloth is stretched over a head form and the features are hand painted.

One of the oldest makers of this type of doll is the Italian firm of Lenci. We saw several examples of these lovely dolls. These Lenci dolls are quite costly and really not meant to be played with. Those who own these treasures consider them to be works of art to be admired like the French and German porcelain dolls of an earlier time. They were probably taken out of the cabinet on Sundays, admired and put back. They could have been considered a status symbol because only the wealthy could afford them. Notable features of the Lenci's are the stitched fingers, and hand painted faces. Their clothing was constructed of felt, or organdy, or both. This firm went out of business in 2001 which makes these dolls even more collectible.

Unfortunately, there are imitations of the Lenci dolls. Nora Wellings' and Chad Valley's dolls from England, and Ravaca's from France fall into this category. Member Cynthia Hillman brought her 1980's Stupsy doll from Germany with plastic eyes to share with us. We also saw "Pauline" who is made in the U.S. and has a plastic face with a soft-sculpture body. Robin Woods of Pittsburgh Originals dolls are a good example of high quality soft sculpture dolls, became "Alice Darling" after breaking her contract with the Madame Alexander Company due to artistic differences.

There are many artists working in this medium presently who can be considered master doll artists. Some of the current master doll sculpturers are:

Artist	Country	Specialty
Shelly Thornton	USA	Wool stuffed dolls that are not "person" looking. They are conceived out of her imagination and are mostly one-of-a-kind.
Marla Florio	USA	Her dolls are essentially stuffed cotton with hand drawn faces. These dolls are 14" to 16", with faces done in colored pencils and are one-of-a-kind.
Karen Heller	Germany	Creates 19" dolls that are jointed in the head and legs. The head is extra special because of the ball joint, which allows is to be turned sideways and angular. These lovely dolls have human hair wigs. They are signed and production is limited to 100.
R. John Wright and his wife Susan	USA	Work only in felt. These award winning dolls are elegant yet playful.
Lisa Lichtenfels	USA	Constructs all needle sculptures with hand painted features. Her sculptures are so detailed and life-like that people stare at them to see if they are alive when encountering these beautiful babes. The price for these unusual creations starts at $1,000.
Debbie Richmond	USA	Creates a cloth sculpt over a head form.
Nancy Latham	USA	All needle sculpt.
Maggie Iacono and Shirley Peack	USA	Cloth sculpt over a head form.

Our own Cabbage Patch Kids (the brainchildren of Xavier Roberts of Cleveland, GA) are all needle sculpted. The plastic-faced dolls bearing the same name are not manufactured at Babyland General.