A Step Into the Bata Shoe Museum: The Beauty of Beads

A Step Into the Bata Shoe Museum: The Beauty of Beads: By Elizabeth Semmelhack, Senior Curator   Small, luminous and colourful, beads have been used to decorate footwear around the world...

Over 10,000!

Thank you to our over 10,000 viewers. Look for more posts in the next few weeks regarding women and Calvinism, women and Lutheranism, 17th c women of the aristocracy and the right to speak out, healing women and the stimas against them, e.g, contemporary and not so contemporary figures like Sairy Gamp, and dolls and toys from Erzebet's time.

Lizbeth Salander, Women Warriors, and Erzebet

3 or 4 years ago, I read "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo," and saw the original Swedish film. I was blown away by the intricate plot, but I usually read suspense/mystery novels with intricate plots. I moved on to the seemingly countless other books I read, saw that there was a popular American film, didn't have time to see it, and moved on to other things. I picked up the second book, "The Girl who Played with Fire," and couldn't put it down. Larson structured the book on equations, and Lizbeth carries with her a book called "Dimensions in Mathematics," so I looked up the closest book I could find, "Philosophical Dimensions in Mathematics Education." [Kindle edition]. She made me want to take more Math and physics. The plot was hard to figure out, and this pleases me. Usually, I can' figure it out, but Larson writes in enigmas. The last book, "The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest" is the best. For one thing, it is over 800 pages, which I love in an intricate, fast paced book. For another, the epigraphs and introductory material about women warriors, like Boudicca, mentioned on this blog, Semiramis, the Amazons. The comparison is that Lizbeth is a warrior woman, and she is. She is a sprite of Shakespearean dimensions, who fights her own injustice, beats the system, does everything we wish we could go, including hide ourselves so no one know who we really live, or who we really are. And, she is a humorless, serious woman who is seriously misunderstood and falsely accused. Like Erzebet. Read the books; Lizbeth will remind you of our Countess.

Dr. E's Doll Museum Blog: Doll Collecting at About.com

Dr. E's Doll Museum Blog: Doll Collecting at About.com: Look for me on the doll collecting site, above. There is a free newsletter you can sign up for, and my weekly blog. I also have a blog on ...

Dr. E's Doll Museum Blog: Doll Collecting at About.com

Dr. E's Doll Museum Blog: Doll Collecting at About.com: Look for me on the doll collecting site, above. There is a free newsletter you can sign up for, and my weekly blog. I also have a blog on ...

Dr. E's Doll Museum Blog: About.com Doll Collecting and Long Gone Dolls by T...

Dr. E's Doll Museum Blog: About.com Doll Collecting and Long Gone Dolls by T...: A brief post to remind all my followers and readers that I love you and welcome comments. You can also read me on About.com Doll Collecting...

Historical Doll Art by Debbie Ritter

Profile of doll artist Debbie Ritter, Uneek Doll Designs at Etsy.com I met Debbie after finding one of her dolls featured on a blog about Lady Jane Grey. I couldn’t wait to buy the doll, and soon bought others, including the portrait of writer Barbara Pym, featured on my blog Miss Barbara Pym meets Miss Charlotte Bronte. Debbie is a transplanted Hoosier to Alabama as of summer 2013 with four grown children and one grandchild. She has been married 25 years. Besides making dolls, her interests include reading, walking, art work, and cooking (when she has time!) Debbie is a born artist, and as she says of herself; “I grew up with a pencil in hand and carried paper everywhere I went- got in trouble a few times with teachers for drawing on my homework, and art was my best subject in school.” Debbie does not collect dolls per se, but likes to create them as a favorite art form. A doll house kit first inspired her miniature creations: “I got inspired to create my art dolls when my husband was given a dollhouse kit by my mom, who despaired of my father ever putting it together. Being the tooling engineer that he was, he put it together and I decided to make some dolls to go in it out of clothespins. She loved it so I continued and I made up my own technique and developed it over time.” I can really relate to Debbie over dollhouses and the need to populate them. My dad was an electrical engineer who built one fantastic dollhouse for me from scratch, and another from a kit. He is an electrical engineer, and it seemed to take forever. He didn’t electrify my houses, and when I asked him why, Dad answered, “We’re Victorian.” Debbie’s dollhouse adventures began a chain of thinking; she decided to combine her love of classic literature, history, and the observation of ordinary people into creating her art work. Debbie finds people in general inspiring because if you study someone long enough, you will see some features that stand out. It is those features challenge her. She started selling her creations when by chance a lady waiting on her at the craft store mentioned Etsy. Debbie wrote the word down and forgot about it for 2 months, then decided to take the plunge to see what would happen. The rest is history and she has been doing well at it ever since. The artist’s work has been featured at “The Today Show” where the crew gave Susan Boyle a replica of herself that Debbie had made during a live interview between Boyle Meredith Viera. . Debbie’s work has also been featured in Vanity Fair online, The Art Doll Quarterly, Doll Collector Magazine, New York Magazine, -Show Time series on television, -Mystery Scene Magazine, New York Magazine, CI Living in Champaign Illinois, and my blogs Dr.Es’s Doll Museum, Dr. E’s Greening Tips for the Common Person, An Apologia for Countess Erzebet Bathory, and Memoir; Writing your Life Story. She can be reached through me or her Etsy store, uneekdolldesigns.etsy.com