I can't tell you the enthusiasm and gratitude we all felt at Pinky's being accepted into Harry Potter camp, newcomers as we were to the whole doll camp experience. Naturally, it threw all of us into a great chaotic tizzy of getting ready to send our little one off to camp -- a first for all of us. At her age, just turned what? 13? of course her immediate response after the first peals of ecstatic enthusiasm was, "Oh, no, what should I wear? What should I take? What do I need? What should I do?"
The girls opened their closets to her and told her to start borrowing things that they'd outgrown and that might fit her (as is the usual case with a large family of girls, you get a large wardrobe to choose from, not new, but new to you -- all you need is an imagination and an ability to mix and match):
Rhubarb Sepulveda brings in some
hostess gifts to take to the camp director: a magnum of champagne, a moon cake, roses, and a bit of jewelry. (above left)
Pinky has gathered together
an assortment of clothes gleaned from her sisters' closets, and enlists Rhubarb's help as a stylist. It's a big job, but Rhubarb is armed with some champagne of her own to carry her through the process.
Sorting and selecting with the assistance and advice of her older sister Rhubarb, a performance artist (above left), who certainly can help here, with her fashion and theatre background (plus she has seen many of these clothes before, sister by sister)(above right)
As the sun begins to set, Pinky has pared down the selection to mix and match, and has begged the use of Rhubarb's fine black kit bag, designed by a niece of Cesar Chávez for her girls.
A job well done -- on less than a shoestring budget. Like the Weasleys, the Sepulveda "has more children than they can afford," according to those whose wealth is measured in coin.
Of course, final refinements will have to be made before departing early tomorrow, but Pinky is chuffed as all get-out to have pared all this down into a kit bag and a swim bag, and is feeling good about the wardrobe she has put together from the family closets.
"...and we did it all without magic -- just hard work!"
"O.K. now, let's see how the bathing suit tops fit you; we need to get your swimwear coordinated."
The phone rings and Pinky goes to answer it, back in the white top that is hers and new: the latest in assymetrical halter tops, a gift from Rhubarb.
"That was Mark. He said Alison's walking around the house in circles because she's been up all night getting everything together for IFDC and she's still working, and he has to watch her so she doesn't keep losing things in her hands, plus they are going to wait for a break in the rain and try to there without getting everything wet. Could you drive me there instead?"
As Pinky and Rhubarb sit back to share a small glass of champagne, a glow of light hits the South side of the room and out of a glowing mist, accompanied by a deep "tongk" as of two wooden goblets knocking together in a toast, appears the arm of the Sepulveda Godmother holding a bamboo wand topped with a crystal point, wrapped in silver and copper for conduction. Both ladies clap their hands and shreik in joy at the apparation, for no, it is not an apparition but a real live "fairy" godmother whose arm extends out of the glow with the wand for Pinky. Her soft voice croons as she floats the wand over to Pinky,
"Remember Pinky, about bamboo:
and just as softly, blowing a warm breeze of kisses over the goddaughters, she fades back to from where she had been.
xxxx(phone)
"That was Clare. She said she was running late and would meet us at the station."
All the Dolls I've done, play with, am working on.... (always under construction): certainly not ALL the dolls -- I spend more time on them and on listing on eBay than keeping up these pages, especially after I lost the rest of the photos of Pinky's Harry Potter experience, her arrival home surrounded by friends and family, in what I have come to call "The Great Computer Freeze Virus of 2005," from which I have yet to recover (as of May 2007, along with New Orleans)...
Summer 2004: Well, ... face repaints, .... One group I became involved with had a Travel Doll Project that was an outlet for a continuation and expansion of what I had already been doing with Furbies -- photographing them as traveling companions (which they were) with lives of their own. Involvement with that group -- or the "owner" of same -- washed away with the New Orleans flood of 2005, when I was "banished" from it for "talking politics" because "not everyone would share [my] opinion" that the U.S. President's response was woefully inadequate and sadly out of touch with reality. I'm well out of those shallow waters if seeing his remarks as out of touch with reality, yet trying hard to hit the talking points he was supposed to hit, is considered to be discussing politics. Big rains have such a wonderful way of exposing the detritus and debris behind everyday veneers.
Now the girls and I just have a laugh with a line from a Non Sequitur cartoon dealing with same: "Look out the window, Brenda," a prime example of the synchronicity in my life and thoughts that I first started to notice at the age of 12 -- the age when all those metaphysical skills begin to manifest themselves. Well, enough of this; we need to put up our discussion photos instead of describing it in text.
Page 1 of Featured Dolls
Page 2 of Featured Dolls
Page 1 of Doll Clothes
Page 3 of Featured Dolls(not open yet)
Page 4 of Featured Dolls: Alison's Wonderland Fur Salon for fashion dolls
Page 5 of Featured Dolls: Alison's Wonderland Fur Salon for fashion dolls
Book Crossing Diorama:
About the Diorama: The Diorama itself: how it was made; how it looks in scale to the real world.
Luisa's Story: How I overcame a lifelong antipathy toward "Barbie, the Doll."
The Sepulveda Girls: (just begun)
Pinky Sepulveda You are here
At the Station next page
Pinky's Dream
Harry Potter Camp, sorted into Hufflepuff -- where she wanted to be, to be closer to Luna Lovegood and learn more about herbology, as well as something about Hufflepuff and its history.
Above, we have a picture of ....