All
Dolled Up
Winston-Salem doll artist fashions common toys into one-of-a-kind
creations
By
Allison Perkins
The Greensboro News and Record
December 20, 2005
Maria Magher's favorite Barbie dolls are the ones with mangled
legs.
She hits the jackpot when she comes across a pile of former blonde
beauties at a yard sale, their golden locks chopped by a scissor-wielding
tot.
Magher can glance over the pile of mostly naked, sometimes bald,
often bruised playthings and see movie stars, TV characters, brides
and mythological creatures.
And from their broken shells, she creates one-of-a-kind dolls,
tiny replicas of real people captured at one moment in time --
as they win an Oscar, flash a Super Bowl audience or save the
world on the big screen.
Magher is one of a small group of doll artists across the country
who turn mass-produced dolls into unique creations.
She removes the doll's hair and re-roots it with new, brighter
and fresher colors. She perms it. She paints the doll's skin.
She molds cleft chins or elf ears into their profiles. She gives
them wings. She replaces their legs with a horse's hindquarters.
Every outfit is handmade. Every detail is exact. She has special
ordered tiny swords and working bow-and-arrow sets. She embroiders
their gowns and adds real chain mail to their suits of armor.
She cobbles their tiny shoes.
And when she has finished her work, it must past the greatest
of tests. She presents the doll to her co-workers and asks, "Who
does this look like?"
"It's
fun. My friends have gotten used to it," Magher says. "They're
always asking me for dolls."
The one-time doll collector and longtime crafter became curious
about the hobby after spotting the dolls on the Internet.
She found that the nationwide community of crafters fashioning
the dolls was small and close-knit. She also learned that the
hobby was expensive and as time consuming as a second job. Magher
works nights as a copy editor at the Winston-Salem Journal and
spends her days crafting dolls.
"Whenever
I'm at the movies or watching TV, I'm like, 'Oh, I can make a
doll out of that.' "
Several years ago, she began learning techniques on the Internet
and later sold her first doll, a likeness of Christina Aguilera
from the "Moulin Rouge" video, for $20.
Since then, she has created Cher, Lara Croft and Tom Cruise's
character in "The Last Samurai," fashioned a doll to look like
Johnny Depp's character, Jack Sparrow, in "Pirates of the Caribbean,"
and portrayed Janet Jackson at her revealing Super Bowl half-time
show.
Amazingly, each mini-me looks strikingly like its namesake.
The Tom Cruise doll sold for $300. Jack Sparrow fetched $680.
Cher made $230.
As she worked, Magher made a name for herself, earning much of
her business through commissions.
Brides have commissioned her to make replicas of themselves in
their wedding gowns. Magher copies every detail of the gown, exactly
re-creating the embroidery detail of the bride's dress.
Last year she won third place at the Fashion Doll Makeover Awards,
a national competition in Las Vegas.
Her success, she says, sometimes depends on finding a good base
doll. She uses Barbie as well as dozens of other brands of dolls
found locally and on the Internet.
Sometimes, it's a matter of having the doll everybody wants.
Lara Croft, she says, was huge.
"I
must have made 10 of those," she says.
Jack Sparrow from "Pirates of the Caribbean" was even bigger.
Magher never makes the same doll twice. Each Lara Croft was different
somehow in hairdo, clothing or facial expression.
The time she spends on each creation depends on the doll. Some
take 10 hours and others a full work week.
After all the sewing, painting and molding, she's easily able
to part with her creations because the recently married Magher
is as realistic as she is creative. There's just not enough space
to store them all.
Not to mention, it's a hobby that can pay for itself.
"It's
an expensive hobby if you're not selling," Magher says. "If you're
just doing it to do it, you're going to get yourself in a lot
of debt."
For one thing, broken Barbies don't always fit the bill. Magher
created a doll based on the mythological character Daphne out
of a base doll that cost $60.
She recently spent $300 on an airbrush machine that will give
her dolls a smooth coating of new skin color.
Selling the dolls gives her the means to buy more supplies, and
a well-deserved compliment after all her detailed work.
"I
see sales as a measure of how well I'm doing," she says. "If it's
not going so well, sometimes I get discouraged."
Not that the requests ever really stop. She has even created a
doll -- "The Last Samurai" -- for her husband.
"He
likes it in his own manly way," she says.
