“You can get male dolls circumcised or uncircumcised.” This attention to detail is what marks the work of British Virgin Islands resident Trenita Hodge, who makes dolls using the art form in this part of the world, called soft sculpture.
She was here for Carifesta.
Soft sculpture employs cloth, foam, rubber and similar types of materials. Such work, while relatively unknown in this part of the world is popular in places like the United States and Europe and can command high prices.
Hodge, who was exhibiting her craft at the Grand Market at the Sophia Exhibition Centre, related to this newspaper that she started out making simple ‘cookie cutter’ dolls for her daughter in the 1980s. ‘Cookie cutter’ dolls are ones, where an outline is cut out, then sewn to form a doll. Then her daughter requested dolls with more details and this developed into where the dolls had many features.
Hodge, who was living in California at the time, recounted that her daughter took the dolls to school, and the teacher ordered some. Thence began a business.
Hodge always aims to go one step further with her next doll in relation to the details and as she progressed in her work, she travelled to many different parts of the world to exhibit her dolls. She has travelled to the US and Europe for exhibitions of soft sculpture, with her last show being in Boston, Massachusetts in May.
But should one think that it is easy to produce dolls with such detail, Hodge, related that one of her dolls, which was at the booth, took two years to make. She has also made some in as little as two weeks. She asserted that it was not like making a dress… “it’s just like a vision you are working on”. She said that while soft sculpture is well known in the US and Europe, it is relatively unknown in the Caribbean. Her dolls on show at Sophia, according to her, are in the “lower price range”. The lowest is priced at US$250 while the most expensive is US$1,200. The soft sculpture artist said she has been in the business for about 28 years and “you have to be willing to take chances”.
She declared that with each new piece, she aims to take it further that the previous one. And unlike the majority available commercially, “most of the dolls are anatomically correct”.
Hodge says she has progressed to the point where the next doll would have to be able to move. And this is what she is planning though she has to meet the right person, “who has mechanical skills”.
Her dolls generated interest at the Grand Market. The woman said that from what she has experienced of Guyana, she loves it. “I never though I would love it but I do,” she stated.
