We’ve received numerous comments from readers who wish that “Bunty’s shop could always stay up”. Made for interesting conversation with breakfast. Nanea was so upset by the idea that she ran back to her lagoon on winged feet; Bunty cried so hard that I thought her eyes would rust; and I answered with an emphatic “no no no”. Nanea was traumatized this last Wool Week by having to stay in the same clothes for “TWO WHOLE WEEKS” (no one gets changed, in case we need to do retakes). It was like living with a broken record. It’s all she could think about for weeks afterward. She was so disgusted with it that she refused to even read the final blog entries for Wool Week. Bunty likes to work with her sheep and keep house for her brother, and the idea of a full-time shop was too much for her. As for me . . . well, I like variety. Remember, Nanea is just an 18″ version of ME!
Nanea and me (with camera) in the middle of a photo shoot at the Pin Trading Store in Disney Springs, Florida.
Whatever project I’m working on at the time seems like my favorite, and I don’t like to think that it will end. Then time passes, and someone mentions a future story (this year it was the Christmas Tree Walk). That’s it. I’m ready to move on.
Now that we got the emotional end of things out of the way, let’s discuss the real problem. Yep, you guessed it. SPACE! Space, the arch enemy of all collectors. Space, as in square or cubic feet. Space that is indoors, climate controlled, and unused! We have four adults, all with a variety of full-blown hobbies and two large cats, living in one small house. A small, boxy little country house that’s 150 years old and bulging at the seams. With an open-air, crawl-space attic and dirt-floor cellar. And very few closets.
Our house in the middle of Winter.
Every now and then, Mom suggests that Sis and I sleep in the living room and turn our bedroom into a doll room. She’s kidding, of course. After all, we’d have to find space for all the other stuff that already shares our bedroom with us.
Our Bedroom
Our coffee table in the living room is just the right size for Scenes and Settings, but that only holds 3-4 dolls at best. And it’s harder to shoot downstairs, when all the stuff is upstairs. When we moved here, though, Dad turned what was a later-addition master bedroom upstairs into our Library/TV Room. Replete with built-in, wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. Filled with nearly 8,000 books. And furniture ringing the edge of the room in front of the books. What’s left in the middle of that room is about 216 square feet of floor space (12×18′). It is sacrosanct space, and no one is allowed to fill it with even semi-permanent furnishings. It’s the “doll shoot” place. Our “community center” (paneled walls you see in a lot of our photos) measure 6×6′, leaving very little space around them for props, dolls, or even me when doing a large set-up.
In the midst of setting up for Wool Week in our doll photographing spot.
Lighting is another issue. There are only two windows in that room, on either end of the same wall that faces north. Unfortunately, the placement of those windows compels us to run all of our set-ups the short way of the room. The natural light from those windows is essential to get the look we want, so we have to keep our sets open to that wall. Living in an area of Ohio which can officially boast only 87 full-sun days per year makes it a catch-as-catch-can prospect, but you wouldn’t like artificially-lit stories. We know. We’ve tried.
I don’t think I mentioned that our two cats sleep in that room every night. They do. Except when we’ve got dolls in action and the room is closed at all times. Cats, as you know, are creatures of habit. When they can’t get in to go to bed, they howl. All night, they howl. For days on end. Until we let them back in. This last Wool Week (2021) was the largest set-up we’ve ever done, and we locked them out for ten days. It was a lot of howling. The cats even left notes on the door one day. We weren’t moved.
While we’re at it, maybe you’d like to know how you enter/exit the room without one of them dashing between your legs and sneaking in. You don’t, really. Well, we try, and then someone hollers “CAT!”. Everyone lunges before the dolls go down, and by then you’ve forgotten what you were leaving the room to do. It’s great fun, really. The howling is a bit much, but what are you going to do?
Four-year-old Henry, destructo cat and vinyl chewer.
Being the old house that it is, the room has old wood floors with carpeting on top. The dolls don’t stand long on that at all, so steadying the set-up “floor” is the most important first step we take. After that, there are rules for access to the room when the door is closed during a doll set-up. No unnecessary entry or movement at all. No shoes or heavy footfall. Leggings and tight shirts only. Long hair contained. No jewelry or other sharp items if you’re working anywhere near the dolls. Can’t afford to have loose hair or flowing clothes knocking things over. It isn’t very fun to get 20 or 40 dolls set up in a 6×6′ area and have them toppl
e. The domino effect, you know. (When Nanea got knocked over and fell on top of Flossie, she was inconsolable until we showed her that her grand-champion chicken was fine. And the dolls get very embarrassed when their wigs are flying all over the place. Happened to Kelly once, so she wore a hat for months before we could talk her into taking it off.)We used to have more time to do the big set-ups, because we could quickly close the room off and get to work if we hit on a couple of sunny days. That all changed in March 2020, though, when Dad was sent home to work remotely. His office area sits in a corner of the Library, now, and we have to wait for him to tack a couple of PTO days onto a weekend in order to get four days in a row. Sadly, we haven’t been able to figure out how to jive his days off with several of the 87 sunny days. I’m learning how to better use my camera in low light, but there’s only so much one can do. So, how did we get nine days for Wool Week this year? Dad was furloughed for a week, so we took advantage of the situation and turned it into the proverbial silver lining.
I love photographing these dolls. There’s nothing else like them for making me smile, and the photo stories are a Providential source of happiness points for me. I love bringing the personalities of each doll into a situation and picture. Takes a lot of work and thought, but the results are always worth it. And my sister and I get a lot of quality time together. That’s why I don’t want just any one shop to always be there. We make things for them all year long, but Sis and I have great fun planning and setting up, too. We have ideas for more set-ups than we’ll probably ever see come to life, but it’s fun trying.
e. The domino effect, you know. (When Nanea got knocked over and fell on top of Flossie, she was inconsolable until we showed her that her grand-champion chicken was fine. And the dolls get very embarrassed when their wigs are flying all over the place. Happened to Kelly once, so she wore a hat for months before we could talk her into taking it off.)We used to have more time to do the big set-ups, because we could quickly close the room off and get to work if we hit on a couple of sunny days. That all changed in March 2020, though, when Dad was sent home to work remotely. His office area sits in a corner of the Library, now, and we have to wait for him to tack a couple of PTO days onto a weekend in order to get four days in a row. Sadly, we haven’t been able to figure out how to jive his days off with several of the 87 sunny days. I’m learning how to better use my camera in low light, but there’s only so much one can do. So, how did we get nine days for Wool Week this year? Dad was furloughed for a week, so we took advantage of the situation and turned it into the proverbial silver lining.
I love photographing these dolls. There’s nothing else like them for making me smile, and the photo stories are a Providential source of happiness points for me. I love bringing the personalities of each doll into a situation and picture. Takes a lot of work and thought, but the results are always worth it. And my sister and I get a lot of quality time together. That’s why I don’t want just any one shop to always be there. We make things for them all year long, but Sis and I have great fun planning and setting up, too. We have ideas for more set-ups than we’ll probably ever see come to life, but it’s fun trying.
My favorites? Well, Wool Week is certainly one of the highlights of my doll world. But I always tell my family that if I woke and found the house on fire, I’d grab Nanea first. My immovables are Nanea, Eliot, Bunty, Benny and Kelly (not necessarily in that order). In my dream world, Nanea’s house and Pearl Stall, Bunty & Eliot’s house and Sheep Shop, Kelly’s Disney store, and the Diner would always be set up and readily accessible. Until then, we really don’t mind taking everything down. We’re grateful that we even have the means to do as much as we do. I’m glad you like things enough to wish they could always be there. They always are, really, since my mind is constantly filled with new ideas to make the next time better.
For those of you who asked, we took more than 2,500 pictures for Wool Week 2021. Some time soon, I’ll get Mom to sit down and tell you how she picks what she does and turns them into a story.
Until then, Keep Calm and Choose Wool! “10 Wonderful Reasons to Love Wool . . .” Not now, Harold. Later. I promise.
What a beautiful winter photo of your home! Very interesting to read about how your whole family works on the set. You’re making good memories together.