With Valentine’s Day approaching, I felt the need to make a doll that speaks about the heart.

This figurine is modeled from polymer clay.

I wanted to avoid being too twee, so the face needed to be as simple as possible. I made two marks to indicate closed eyes.

You may say she looks a little sad. I’d rather think of her as being contemplative. She is peacefully reflecting on the importance of love in her life.

That’s something I need to remember to do more often.

(This post relates to the Heart Chakra Spirit, Stacey Apeitos art dolls #9, February 2008)

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I like sushi. And most Japanese sushi bars I visit have a ceramic lucky cat on its counter. It is the “Maneki Neko”, raising one or both paws, welcoming customers, attracting business. You can read more about Maneki Neko in Wikipedia.

I bought myself a tiny porcelain lucky cat not long ago to sit above my computer. And as I was admiring it, I got to thinking, why just own a lucky cat? Why not BE a lucky cat?!

So I designed a little paper doll cat. And I put my own face on it. That was so much fun, I made a couple of feline friends. And now we are all sitting above the computer with the original little porcelain one.

In the days since I created this self-portrait of myself as the lucky cat, I have caught myself reflecting on the fortunate life I lead. It brings a smile to my face. I am lucky. It is true. And I believe the more I regard myself as being lucky, the more luck I will attract.

I invite you to turn yourself into a lucky cat, too. I’ve made a little pdf template and project sheet to make it easy for you. Click to open the Maneki Neko pdf template in a new window. You will need to have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your computer. When it is open in a new browser window, you can save it or print it.

(This post relates to Maneki Neko by Stacey Apeitos, art doll #8, February 2008.)

Drawing inspiration from Stacey’s article in Astarte’s Mega-Zine (Issue 4), resulted in my second submission to the 100-artdoll challenge. Used as an image in many cultures throughout the world, the Hamsa typically represented a symbol to ward off negative influences. Stacey’s research further revealed that the eye-in-the-hand symbol additionally represented amongst different religions: compassionate wisdom, creative divine wisdom and the identification and response to community needs.

I first used the Hamsa imagery in 1986 as a fine-art student at R.M.I.T., Melbourne. Now, in 2008, I decided to revisit my appreciation of the image through the challenge. My 2008 Hamsa was made from a cut-out scan of my own hand pasted onto polystyrene board. I strengthened it with layers of papier-mache and coated it with (my obsession of the moment) glittery paint. I reached into my box of random eyes and inserted one in the middle of the palm. Now was the time to have more fun and add another creative layer to the piece. To magnify the energy from the eye, I glued a circular magnifying glass atop plastic pushpins and positioned it accordingly. To display Hamsa 2008, I planned to hang it within a frame. I coated the painting within the frame (one of my old ones that didn’t quite work out) with purple suede effect paint. To finish the piece off, I used Velcro dots to suspend the Hamsa in the middle of the frame. One last addition: a pendulum, coated in papier-mache and painted was hung from the lower pushpin. Glued onto the pendulum were words that I considered relevant to historic, current, and (my) personal intentions that have underpinned Hamsa symbolism.

Words attached to the pendulum included:

• Creativity
• Future
• Healing
• Perseverance
• Purpose
• Reflection
• Transformation

(This post relates to Hamsa 2008, Arrigo Dorissa art doll #2, January 2008)

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If you are inspired by what you read here at MyArtSelf, please consider taking up the challenge. Just remember that the challenge isn’t about making lots of stuff. It is about learning, healing and expressing through the process. It is about setting intentions for a life of quality.

There are two important aspects – making the art and writing about what the art shows us.

If you’ve been thinking about getting into blogging, maybe this challenge could be your impetus. It is a good idea to have a blog that focuses on a specific theme or topic. Your own 100-art-(whatevers) challenge could be the theme of your blog.

If you are not yet technically savvy, a really basic blogging program to cut your teeth on is Tumblr. And it is free. So is Blogger, which packs a little more punch.

Typepad costs a little money but it is preferred by many creative types who take their blogging seriously.

The MyArtSelf blog is built on a Wordpress platform hosted on a privately owned website.

This month I’ve been pulling together the articles for issue 5 of Astarte’s Mega-Zine. The theme is “Dreaming”. The articles have been so content-rich! Catherine McArdle, my associate editor said she kept forgetting she was supposed to be editing as she read through these articles because each one was so enthralling.

I designed this double-sided doll specifically for the issue and am delighted to include it in the 100-art-doll challenge, too.

On one side her eyes are shut and she is dreaming a night-time dream. Her net is raised to snare that dream and hold it in her memory to be recalled upon waking.

On the other side the doll is awake and focused on her hopes, dreams and aspirations. She catches these dreams in her net so she can focus on them and make them hers. This is the law of attraction at play. What we think about and develop strong emotional responses to, becomes our reality.

What would you dare to dream if you knew you could not fail? My hero, Brian Tracy, asks this repeatedly.

Here is the original quote he borrowed from:

What one great thing would you dare to dream if you knew you could not fail? The easiest person to deceive is one’s own self. –Edward G. Bulwer Lytton

I made a butterfly, a heart and a star to place in the dolls net to represent dreams – waking dreams or sleeping dreams.

The doll is cardboard laminated with printed scrapbooking papers. I’ve sanded back the edges to distress them. The two halves of the skirt are laced together with embroidery thread. I punched the holes in the skirt with my Japanese screw punch – what a joy it is to use!

The template and instructions for this doll will be in issue 5 which is released 1 February. You can subscribe to Astarte’s Mega-Zine here, or you can wait and buy a single issue after that date.

(This post relates to the Catch-a-Dream Art Doll, Stacey Apeitos art dolls #7, January 2008)

I went into the studio intending to make an accordion book. I picked up a deck of cards from my box of collage papers. The next thing I know, I’ve built a little house.

A house of cards. It is a metaphor, is it not, for something flimsy; impermanent. A house of cards is at risk of falling apart.

I wondered if I could turn the house into the body of an art doll somehow.

Chris, my teenage son, then wandered in and I told him about the 100-art-dolls challenge. He was interested when he learned that Arrigo is involved, since Arrigo is cool.

I showed Chris how I’d cut the face of a queen from a card and wanted to attach it above the house to make a doll. Chris asked, ‘why not just make a doll and have her sit on the house?’ This, of course, was an excellent suggestion.

I constructed a doll from cut-out bits of card. With her helmet she looks like Joan of Arc. Poor Saint Joan, seated on a house of cards about to collapse beneath her. She burned at the stake, you know.

When I was in 4^th grade, my teacher Mrs. Allred told us to find out if we were related to anyone famous, and then report back to class. Robin Holler, it turned out, was related to Daniel Boone. Suddenly this propelled Robin to a more significant status in my mind.

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In his first project, Arrigo started with an idea and figured out how to express that through a doll – his talisman. (Read his post below.)

I started the challenge in a kind of reverse fashion – I made a couple of paper dolls then considered what they represented to me.

I had some eye clipart print-outs on my studio desk which were from issue 4 of Astarte’s Mega-Zine. I knew I wanted to use it to make some Cyclops dolls. The Cyclops is an image that pops up in my art from time to time.

The dolls are about 8 inches tall. I cut the shapes from cardstock and punched holes in the head, sticking the eye images on from the back. Paint, and some tiny print scraps were applied, along with these quotes:

Imagination is the Eye of the Soul. (Joseph Joubert)

The eye is the window of the soul; the intellect and will are seen in it. The animals look for man’s intentions right into his eyes. Even a rat, when you hunt and bring him to bay, looks you in the eye. (Hiram Powers)

Interestingly, the message of the quotes is not so striking to me, personally, as the imagery of the large eye occupying the entire face of each doll.

The message I’m getting here is FOCUS.

I always have a lot of projects on the boil. If I can stay calm and focus on one project at a time – give it my full, undistracted attention for a set period – I achieve results and feel happy and strong.

(This post relates to One-eyed Focus, Stacey Apeitos art dolls #1 and 2, January 2008)

“It’s just an illusion that lots of money brings happiness.”

I overheard this cliché remark as I waited in a bank queue.

Of course, the rationally-minded will admit that it has not been a case of money’s effect on happiness, but rather the attitude towards money that has in some cases, overrated its effect.

The person behind me continued his conversation with statements such as, “The illusion that money makes you happy can have unexpected side effects. It can actually make your life worse.” Did this person ever have a lot of money, I wondered?

Sure, there were altruistic advantages to settling oneself into the benefits of, for example, a plentiful lottery win. I recalled a news article from many years ago which reported on an unemployed twenty-something who bought his step-dad a new glass eye when he won over eight hundred thousand dollars. Then, there was the anxious, lonely and shy person who vowed to donate a large chunk of her million plus windfall to a psychological institute that specialised in research regarding confidence building and training in effective public speaking. I recalled, although I can’t remember which, that one of the winners also splashed out on a first class around-the-world air ticket and copious amounts of plastic surgery. Money did bring them happiness. For how long? I assumed for as long as the money lasted and was spent in a way that brought the individual their understanding of happiness. Was it more a case of holding an understanding or meaning of happiness and its connection to money regardless of the amount in possession at any given time of life?

Who among us wouldn’t want to win the lottery? Personally, I’d love to. In the meantime, my reflection upon my eavesdropping in the bank queue drew my thoughts to the “MyArtSelf blog” and the 100-art-dolls challenge 2008. Happiness and money? Of course…a talisman.

A talisman is an object that has been empowered to draw something to you. So I created a money-drawing taislman as my first contribution to the challenge. I decided that every piece that I create (call them sculptures, assemblages, art-dolls, what ever) for this project would be predominantly made from recycled materials in order to minimise the global environmental footprint and accommodate my appreciation of “the found object” as art.

I rescued a (much-mangled) plastic figure that was about to be thrown into the garbage by its previous owner (a friends child). I swathed the figure in strips of cloth, rather like an Egyptian Mummy. Throughout the bandaging, I inserted coins found relegated to the nether regions of a drawer that I seldom opened (mainly coins from coins from New Zealand and America). Two Australian coins were also wrapped up within this small sculpture.So there you have it: My first installment of the 2008 challenge, focusing upon themes of happiness, reflection, creativity and life. Oh yes, and attitude to money … the kind that provides positive outcomes…

(This post relates to Prosperity Talisman, Arrigo Dorissa art doll #1, January 2008)