The artist in Maggie Iacono always wanted more …

By Jill Jackson

The seeds of Maggie Iacono’s love of cloth were first planted when she was just a child and was taught to sew by her mother. Though she had no way of knowing it, the simple skills of using a sewing machine and cutting and piecing together McCall’s patterns gave Maggie some of the important basics she later used in creating her very own Maggie Made Dolls.

Even in those early years Maggie had an appreciation for the variety of colors and textures of cloth; most of all, she loved the “warm” feel of cloth in her hands. This tactile sense remained with Maggie throughout her childhood and resurfaced when, as a young wife, she decided to make cloth dolls in her spare time. Her first dolls were simple in design, with disc joints and embroidered faces, but they possessed a beauty and character that was uniquely Maggie’s.

From the very first doll, Maggie’s husband and partner, Tony, was an integral part of the Maggie Made Dolls journey of progress. Today he offers insights on the talent, tenacity, and just plain good humor the couple found along the way.

“The ‘hobby’ quickly turned into ‘work’ when a friend asked if she could take a few of Maggie’s dolls to exhibit for sale at a craft show,” says Tony. The dolls sold quickly, her friend asked for more dolls to sell, and it wasn’t long before Maggie had her own table at local craft shows. And with this, Maggie Made Dolls was born.

With the arrival of the Iaconos’ first daughter, Jennifer, Maggie worked to balance motherhood and art. She took the opportunity to design and sew dresses for her daughter, but the young mother was, by then, deeply devoted to designing outfits for her 22-inch cloth dolls as well. Jokes Tony, “If only Jennifer could have fit into the little dolls’ dresses, but alas, she got only a few ‘mommy made’ originals. She quickly grew out of those, as children do, and it was off-the-rack for Jennifer from then on.”

At craft shows Maggie was exposed to the work of other artists. As her knowledge of design grew, so did her admiration of many of the sculpting and painting techniques she saw there. “The demand for her dolls was steadily growing, but the artist in Maggie wanted more,” says Tony.

The quest to improve her doll designs began in earnest. Maggie started experimenting. She started sculpting faces and making molds into which she pressed felt to achieve more realistic facial features. She tried various fabric mixtures and colors, sometimes with amusing results. “The craft store offered blends of felt,” relates Tony, of one such occasion, “but Maggie found that only 100 percent wool felt gave her the look she wanted. At that time it only came in a color called ‘baby face pink.’ But when the first face came out of the mold, it looked more like baby face ‘bologna.’”

Maggie began to dye fabric to obtain the perfect shade of skin for her dolls. “That’s when I became familiar with all the RIT Dye displays in all the stores in the neighborhood around us,” says Tony. 

Still not satisfied with her dolls’ faces, Maggie abandoned the embroidered features and began to experiment with different painting techniques. “Pumps and airbrushes gave blush to her dolls’ cheeks,” says Tony. “An assortment of fine paint brushes put the twinkle in each doll’s eyes. She took her dolls’ faces to new heights of expression and was happy with the results. But still, the artist in Maggie wanted more.”

Maggie turned her attention to her dolls’ bodies. “I want more of a sculpted look,” she would say, and so she set to work sculpting the entire body from head to toe. According to Tony, the result was beautiful. “Maggie looked at it for a few moments, then, she began hacking it into pieces, not wildly, but like a surgeon, piece by piece,” says Tony. “She cut the arms, legs, and torso apart and handed them to me. ‘Make molds of these,’ she said, and I did. Then I poured resin into the molds and gave the pieces back to her.” Maggie covered the parts with felt and reassembled the body, creating a beautiful cloth body sculpted to fit the expressive faces of her dolls, but, says Tony, it wasn’t enough for Maggie.

The artist continued to push the boundaries of cloth doll art. She looked at porcelain dolls. If they could have ball joints, lift their arms, sit, stand, turn, and tilt their heads, Maggie wanted the same for her dolls. Through the innovative use of elastic cording and custom wooden ball-joints, the dolls were made capable of movement at the neck, shoulders, elbows, thighs, knees, and ankles. They could be played with and positioned just like a porcelain doll but with the “warm” feeling of cloth that Maggie loved.

It was this same affinity for felt as an art medium that made Maggie’s next goal highly doubtful. She had observed the beautifully sculpted hands of some porcelain dolls and wanted her dolls to have these “delicate” looking hands as well. Everything Maggie knew about pattern making and sewing told her it was not possible to sew and turn the heavy felt material she preferred into a delicate little hand, much less the delicate little fingers she had decided they must also possess. Nevertheless, Maggie and Tony began to experiment with patterns and tools that could “turn” a finger and enable them to achieve the impossible. “One hundred hands later we came up with the first perfect little hand,” says Tony. “I kept the bag of experimental samples as a testimonial to my patience.”

“We broke all the rules,” says Maggie. “My dolls could pose in so many positions. Turning and tilting their heads allowed them to change moods, and sitting gave them such playfulness. But their hands were frozen in one expressive state. If they were wired, I could get them to point a finger and hold an accessory—I would have the true ‘poseability’ I wanted.” So the determined duo went back to work. Each finger was painstakingly wired for individual posing. The delicate expressive hands seen on recent Maggie Made Dolls are the result of their efforts.

           Raise an arm, bend an elbow, point a finger - witness art in motion.

Today there are more than 400 steps in the making of each Maggie Made Doll. Each is a work of art in every sense of the word and deemed by many collectors to be absolute perfection. To hold one in your hands is to immediately understand why Maggie selected the warmth of wool felt as her medium of choice. Raise an arm, bend an elbow, point a tiny finger, and witness art in motion.

So, does this remarkable marriage of beauty and poseability mark the end of Maggie’s Iacono’s quest? According to Tony, “Maggie will always be asking herself how she can do better—then it will be back to the drawing board for me.” And if past performance is any indication of the future, there is little doubt in our minds that Tony is correct: the artist in Maggie will always want more.

For more on Maggie Made Dolls, visit http://maggiemadedolls.com.

Buy This Issue: August 2008