This box contains about 60 of my old paper dolls made between 1990-1998, that survived a move to Canada. Apparently I was into Sailor Moon and the X-Files in 1998. Most of my dolls back then were inspired by either stuff I saw on TV, or the boys I liked in real life.
Sadly, all the dolls made prior to 1990 have turned into dust, while many more others were lost during our move to Canada in 1997, when KLM lost almost all of my family's luggage. Everything we owned was in those bags. Yup, we quite literally arrived as the new immigrants with nothing more than the clothes on our backs. The missing luggage was never recovered. True story.
Another true story: My very first nude paper doll was confiscated by my grandmother in 1988, who didn't think it was appropriate for a six year old girl to be making and playing with nude female dolls. And I didn't even draw that doll - she was a cut out from a magazine photo of a Neoclassical painting.
I was spell-bound by the woman in the painting, so I cut her out and made her into my doll. She was painted only down to her thighs and thus was a legless doll, but still she was so beautiful, that 22 years later I still mourn her loss. I wonder if that incident was in some small way responsible for my love of making nude dolls. It's like I'm trying to recreate that first lost doll over and over and over again. Or, perhaps that had nothing to do with it and I just always liked a nude human form. I wish I knew the artist of that painting so that I could find it again. But, unknown to me, it remains locked in the memories of my childhood.
Perhaps some of you may recognize it from my description?
The woman with white, marble-like skin, is in the foreground, painted down to her thighs. She has a full neoclassical figure, with a small waist and round thighs. She is nude, except for a sheer, completely translucent undergarment of some sort, with a delicate ruffled collar. Her round face is framed by waves of raven hair locks, gathered up behind her. Her lips are very red, small and puffy. In one full hand she is holding what I think, is a delicate golden arrow. The tones of the background are kind of deep bluish-green. That's all I remember about it. There may have been other people in the painting, in fact, I kinda think there were, but she was the focal point, and that was what my brain retained. I was blinded by her beauty to the rest of the painting.
Does that sound familiar to any one here? Please let me know. It would mean so much to me to see it again.
And that was the blast from the past.