Carolina Gonzalez

Although it is not nearly finished yet, I wanted to show an update on my new customized doll, Freya. As I said in a previous post, this doll means a great step for me as it is the first one I make with clothes that can be taken off. A powerful learning curve! Last night, I was brainstorming ideas for future dolls with Fernando, and ended up talking about how in Santeria, certain sacred crafts are made by specialized artisans that work only on that area – on a Santeria church there is one who cooks, one who plays the drums, one who beads, one who works with herbs, one who sews the ritual costumes. That kind of artisan is highly valued by the community, as it is such a powerful tool for a ritual to have all the details covered by an expert.

For me, these dolls are not toys, or collector’s items. They are the vessel for an entity, that chooses each doll without me interfering, and directes the work as it flows. I make my dolls in my studio, in a state that we would consider meditative, and sometimes even visionary. I do not make my dolls in front on the TV; I usually play spiritual/classical/relaxing music, light incense and candles, and meditate a little before work. My channels need to be completely clean to transform the doll into a space that is worthy of the deity represented, because an altar/sacred space is where these dolls really belong. This, simple as it seems, has taken me over a decade of dollmaking to realize. But now that it has become so clear, I can’t ignore it any more.

While I may feel like I have reached an Epiphany, the road towards my goal is still very long. For starters, I need a couple of years to build a collection of pieces and develop my skills and vision – while I will document all the work here, no pieces will be for sale for a while, although I will accept offers and will take each one into consideration because, honestly, dollmaking is not cheap. Also, it will be long because I do not have all the time in the world and House Of Eleggua takes almost all of it; and finally, because I really need to stay away from the make+list+sell state of things that selling online carries to be able to let that channeling happen at its best, and do what each Spirit needs. This is the first time that I see that, because I had to sell them, I forced myself to dettach my emotions from the piece – and never got to know how far I would have gone creatively if I had allowed myself to fall in love madly with them. Right now, I want to fall in love, because that is the very essence of Divinity. Through that love, the Divine will flow, and that will be the more powerful magic to exist.

(Source: houseofeleggua.com)