CRAFTER
D OO LBLS E S S E D
BY MARIAN BANTJES
She has pale, almost translucent skin and body and sexuality, and want to contribute to their
perfect little hands that are adorned with breakdown,” she says. For this reason, in the craft
rings and silver bracelets studded with world Bychkova’s work is sometimes declaimed as
garnets. More silver and garnet jewelry, in the form gratuitously shocking.
of a headdress, surrounds her face and delicate The dolls, usually 12 to 15 inches high, typically
features. She looks almost sad, enveloped in her take 200 to 500 hours of work. Bychkova starts by
finery. A jeweled diaphanous veil falls about her sculpting each body part (they are fully articulated
shoulders; a red velvet top is open almost to the in 13 parts) from polymer clay, and after it hardens
waist. She sits, in a costume glittering with beaded she details and smooths each piece. From there
ornament, in a small room in Vancouver, British Co- she makes molds to cast in porcelain, and then
lumbia. She is about 15 inches high when she stands. fine-finishes the head, torso, each limb, and each
Marina Bychkova is the creator of the doll, Impe- tiny hand before firing them. Finally, she hand-
rial Concubine, and doll-making is her passion. She paints each doll with colors that, when fired, will
recently graduated from the four-year art program be completely permanent.
at Emily Carr Institute in Vancouver, but grew up in In her tiny, well-organized studio, Bychkova has
Siberia. While equal parts of art theory and culture boxes of body parts in various stages, drawers
shock may have led her in directions she would not full of molds, a little rack of fired color tests, and
otherwise have realized, Russia’s historic opulence perhaps a head on the workbench, being trans-
and rich folklore emerge in her figures and are rein- formed from white porcelain into a tiny human, lips
terpreted with a slightly darker and more feminist painted with delicate lines, and eyes glistening with
perspective than we are used to seeing. Of her time moisture. Silks and velvets are shaped and sewn,
at Emily Carr, Bychkova says, “Art school played then beaded in an orgy of ornament, bedecked with
a significant role in my intellectual and conceptual tiny details of fabric, trim, and handmade jewelry.
development, though I resented its approach to On her enchanteddoll.com site, it is typical to find
art education, and didn’t realize its impact on my descriptions such as: “A five-piece removable cos-
creative growth at the time.” tume is bead-embroidered with over 30,000 glass
Bychkova’s work risks being dismissed as merely seed beads and weighs almost a pound. Other
pretty. But the dolls are also sexual (and are anato- materials used are: 476 Austrian crystals,
mically correct in fine detail). “I want to challenge
the popular notions of what a doll should be. I The Snow Maiden (opposite), Bychkova’s first porcelain
despise the social taboos regarding the human doll, is adorned with over 30,000 beads.
References:
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