Artist transforms children’s creations into dolls
My significant other’s ex, Julie Tarney, is maddeningly impeccable at many things. She is so otherly, in fact, that I bypassed the inevitable envy and went straight to stages of resignation and awe years ago.
For me, nothing embodies her domestic prowess, however, like her Christmas cookie baking traditions. Ken Hanson, my guy, waxes poetically about their thinness.
Another sign of her incredible grace, Julie has always made batches for Ken in the years since they split. She once flew them in personally from New York City, where she now lives.
One of the key ingredients to her cookie-making ritual is to transform traditional cookie cutter shapes into other things. A round bobble-like ornament shape might become a fish bowl, for instance.
After years of honing his own cookie re-imagining skills, Ken and Julie’s son, Harry James Hanson, created a masterpiece in 2006. He turned a toy soldier cut-out into a Marge Simpson-inspired figure.
Harry spent a good half-hour turning the soldier cookie’s tall hat into a voluminous heap of blue hair, the pointy soldier boots into pink heels and the uniform into a pink housecoat with bright blue and pink flowers.
It was effectively a drag queen cookie.
Ken loved this cookie so much he refused to let anyone eat it. He perched it proudly on a window sill in our kitchen. After several years, Harry, Julie and I had to have a little talk with Ken. It was food. We needed to throw the cookie away.
Recently, Ken got a box in the mail from Harry. He opened it up and found a plush doll reinterpretation of the former drag queen cookie. It was a wonderful and strange object, indeed, this vaguely Marge Simpson-esque, Toy Soldierish, cookie-dough-and-frosting-inspired plaything with blue sequined hair and fat pink pumps.
Ken got misty. It was a symbol of family tradition, traditional and otherwise.
The doll was made from a photograph of the cookie by artist Yaela Uriely. What Uriely does is incredibly special. She takes children’s creations — typically drawings, paintings or collage — and transforms them into dolls they can hold onto. To bring the drawings into three dimensions, Uriely says she uses the kid creations to get inside the world of their imaginations.
“If it’s a monster, animal, selfportrait, a doodle, a fairy or a company logo, I create custom stuffed toys based on your imagination,” she says on her site.
Uriely lives on a farm in Israel and got started making dolls for her own little girl as a way to get through a difficult time. Soon, friends and family were asking to have drawings turned into dolls, too. Now, she runs a small business called Dolls ‘n’ All ( dollsnall.com).
There is something wonderful about seeing bendy arms, blob-like bodies and crazy hair that kids created with crayons, pencils or paint turned into something to cuddle and love. What a beautiful way to affirm a child, who they are and what they express.
The cost of the dolls start at $50 and are priced according to the intricacy of the design. It takes a minimum of two weeks to make the dolls, and Uriely cautions against last-minute orders on her website.
She also says there’s no age limit. Whether for a legit youngster or one at heart, like Ken, she’ll create a custom, one-of-a-kind toy for anyone.