My approach to Washi Ningyo

When I was training to be a dancer, especially in the modern dance field, we learned a lot about “the breath”. Not only how to breath, but how to breath life into our movement. The seemingly effortless movement of an experienced dancer is carried entirely on a breath or the suspension thereof. The dancer seems to move even when they are still. Even the origin of a simple movement such as raising your arm has the breath as its impetus. This understanding of the “breath” translates wonderfully into doll making.

Many of my friends have asked, “why dolls”, “why paper dolls”, and most emphatically, “why Japanese dolls? The answer, on all counts, is affinity. From the first time I stepped on Japanese soil as a professional dancer back in 1981, I fell in love with Japan. I was asked to teach dance in Japan in ‘84 and though the pay was horrible, I took the job because I wanted to be back in Japan again. It was during this time that one of my students took me to a souvenir paper shop and I found my first Washi doll. It wasn’t advanced by any means but it had something; something that I couldn’t quite put my finger on at the time, but I had to have it. Outside of being a dancer I had never felt “artistically” inclined. But once I had returned to my Tokyo apartment and displayed my latest “souvenir”, I had the strongest feeling that I could make this doll. With little more than this feeling to go on, I searched out paper shops and bought books and papers and tried teaching myself how to make this enchanting depiction of a Japanese woman.

Even though Japan was still basically foreign to me, there was something I could readily understand through this doll. As time went on, all my doll work became a wonderful window into the intricacies of this fascinating culture. However, it was as if I wasn’t really having to learn about Japan at all. Rather, the more involved I got, the more it seemed I already knew. It’s a hard feeling to explain. It’s like I was on an express train to an unknown destination and the view was magnificent yet somehow familiar. Most of my Japanese friends expressed how Japanese I was and that I must have been Japanese in a prior life. Over time I too came to believe that there was something to what they were saying.

Now we come to washi. This is one of the most versatile, warm and intriguing substances I have ever worked with. I am truly grateful that the doll that caught my eye and compelled me to try making dolls was made of washi. Where that doll led me on a journey, washi has introduced me to many wonderful people along the way.