By Tina Fisher Cunningham
The Forde Files No 108
Tehachapi's dollmakers create with love - Marie Wyman
The Forde Files No 108
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Tina Fisher Cunningham
True to the era of modesty and many-layered clothing, Leibling wears undergarments, a slip, a skirt, a dress and velvet coat and elaborate hat
Tina Fisher Cunningham
A pensive doll touches a white ribbon
Marie Wyman, an award-winning dollmaker for 40 years, creates reproductions of antique dolls in porcelain, complete with era-appropriate garment design, fabrics, lace and ribbons. She makes one or two of a kind and sells them all over the world. When she isn't working on dolls, she makes aprons and table runners for her Lutheran Church sales, quilts and hats for the Madera Children's Hospital and dresses for children in South Africa. "Everything gets used," she said. "I use stray pieces for pillows."
Wyman pours the molds, fires four times while painting the porcelain and dresses her creations. The entire bodies are porcelain. Her dolls cost $10 an inch with $85 extra for a wig of mohair or real human hair.
