by Jenneke JR.

It was at the end of 1982, a few months after my concussion of the brain, that I realized I had to stay at home for a year, before I would have the opportunity to go back to "Institute Schoevers" for a second chance in September 1983.

I have always been someone who worked with her hands to create things in the past and I really didn’t look forward to a whole year at home, doing nothing so I searched for something I could do during this year.

In the early 80’s, doll making was quite popular. I saw dolls standing here in shops for sale that I really liked and I thought: "Maybe, it’s something for me to do as well". I bought some books about it and it looked very easy, but when I started I realized it wasn’t. My first doll was a complete disaster. I guess, every dollmaker says that. It looked like a doll, but that was it. At least that’s how I think about it now. In that time I thought: "Well, not bad at all".

After some months, reading and studying even more books about this subject, I found out there were many methods to make a doll. I started to create a head of a doll myself, using special clay, but then I saw in one of the books, that it would be much easier to put the clay into a model of a face and from that, basic, to create the face I liked. I went to the shop in our neighborhood and bought some models. Adult- children- and teenager faces.

Rolling out the clay and putting them into the models was the easiest part of the whole process. Then the faces had to dry out and then the process of painting and so on started. It was a great challenge to create from every same face a total new person with blue, green or brown eyes, long or short hair, hats and so on.

During that time, I also visited some special doll exhibitions were you could buy a lot of extra things for your dolls and where it was possible to get some new ideas. I also went several times to the city to buy some stuff to create the clothes for every doll. I made the bodies of the dolls from old sheets that laid here in a closet for years.

Creating the hands and feet’s of the dolls was another process I had to learn. First I made every hand and foot myself, but then I saw, that it was also possible to create these things by using a model. I used this process especially for some big dolls I made, a brother and his sister (photo left) and a big girl and her little sister (photo right).

By the end of March 1983, I had a big collection of dolls I made myself and I started to sell them or giving them away as a present to family and friends.

In the same month I heard that "De Mohicanen" planned a fancy fair later that year and I offered them to make some dolls for this day. They found it a great idea and so I spent a whole part of the summer creating one doll after another. Not only from clay but from some other materials as well. It took a lot of my time, but I loved it.

In October 1983 was the "big" day. The Friday before the fancy fair, some of the other leaders of the group picked me up at home with all the boxes with dolls and drove me to "De Wigwam". We all worked very hard the whole evening to put everything together. You can see the result of my part on the photos below. Really great isn’t it?

During the fancyfair I sold a lot of them and afterwards I took the rest of them with me. In the meantime I started in September for the second time at Schoevers and I hadn’t had so much time anymore to continue my hobby, but then something unexpected happened.

Early 1984 a mother of one of my brownies phoned me and asked me or she could come over to talk to me. I said "Sure", but I really had no idea what she wanted to discuss with me. She didn’t say a word about it. I found out the real reason some days later when she told me that she had some friends in San Francisco, America who were selling things from Holland and they had seen the photos they made on the fancyfair in 1983. These people really liked the dolls and they wanted some typical Dutch dolls and if it would be possible for me to make them. You can imagine that I was speechless, I never thought about that in my wildest dreams and I asked her how many dolls they had in mind. A lot, she said and I answered "I’ll see what I can do, but it can take some time". That was no problem. It really took me months to make them. Especially after my nervous breakdown in May 1984, but a couple of months later they were all ready and it was shipping time.

I got paid for all the work that costed me and they were shipped to San Francisco. I still regret it that I never exactly heard or they liked the dolls or not. A sister of a friend of mine (who lived in San Francisco at the time) went out to see the shop once. The dolls were standing in the window but costed a small fortune, at least much more as I asked for them so I have my doubts about the selling and I’m afraid some of them are still laying in a box now somewhere in San Francisco unsold and crying.

Since 1984, I’m at home and in the beginning I continue to make dolls, I even made one for a dollmuseum "De Poppenhof" for an exposition. It was "Bartje" a person from a famous story here in Holland.

In 1986 I got a terrible pain in my arm and I couldn’t use my arm for 6 weeks. The doctor said it was a reaction on a constantly same move I made and indeed he was right so I was forced to end my dollmaking career the way I did before.

My last creation (in 1990) was the best doll I ever made and it’s the one I’m most proud of. It’s a clown playing a violin and this doll is sitting now in my "Don Johnson Office" on the closet behind me and is looking down at me.

He remembers me at a very hard time I was going through after my fathers death, but on the other hand on a marvelous time as well. A time, I wouldn’t have missed within a million years!

All the photos on this page are © 1982 – 1990 by Jenneke Stinis

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