Marina Bychkova teams up with Dollfair International to produce her highly sought after resin ball-jointed dolls.
Jill Jackson
Marina Bychkova imbues each of her Enchanted Doll creations with her own brand of emotion and a distinct sensuality. Even her fairytale figures are thought provoking and provocative. The intricate costuming, painting, and multiple firings required to achieve a single porcelain doll, combined with her personal demand that they be capable of extreme poses, had resulted in an enormous number of work hours.
With commissioned pieces running two years into the future and prices for her ethereal beauties reaching dizzying heights—one of her pieces recently drew a bid of $40,000 on eBay—Marina recently decided it was time to seek out a less demanding medium that would still offer the same qualities found in porcelain; she chose resin. She then sought out a company capable of reproducing her delicate joint molds with the precision she required. Months went by and no one seemed to grasp the quality she desired in her resin pieces, the need for absolute smoothness and perfection if her dolls were to maintain their range of posing. Marina had all but given up hope until she came across a fairly small company that was relatively new in the realm of doll manufacturers: Dollfair International.
“I had seen Marina’s doll on her Web site and was enthralled with them … I immediately knew I wanted to work with these exotic creatures,” says Dollfair president Catrina Sanders.
According to Marina, “After my long search for a manufacturer with such disappointing results, finally, here was someone who really understood my vision for my dolls; Catrina got me. She really, really got me.”
* * *
Movement and the mechanisms by which the range of motion and posing are achieved have always mesmerized Marina. This was true even when she created her first dolls at the age of 8 in her native Siberia. They were simple paper dolls, but static figures were not for her. Marina experimented with string, glue, wire, and other elementary materials until she found a way of constructing joints for the two-dimensional dolls she created. The paper dolls could then be posed and made to emulate a model’s walk and stance on the runway. This achievement of mobility was as important to the young would-be designer as the fashions she ultimately created for her made-to-order models.
During her later years as an art student at Vancouver’s Emily Carr University of Art and Design, Marina experienced frustration and boredom with a curriculum that accented art theory and stationary art forms like painting and statuary. Her penchant for movement as it related to the human form was stifled. “During those years, I wasn’t asked to create even one doll as a part of my art studies,” says Marina.
Had it not been for the encouragement of her parents, Marina admits she might have quit altogether.
In 2002, as a requirement for graduation, students were to submit a final project of their choosing. The young artist immediately turned to her favorite art form and expressed her pent up anguish in the creation of Necrophilia, a unique interpretation of the classic fairytale figure, Snow White. It was an exquisitely hand-painted doll with multiple joints engineered of wire and leather and poignantly, but despite a body designed for movement, the doll lay both motionless in an elaborate glass coffin.
After school, Marina immersed herself in refining her “Enchanted Dolls,” as she came to call them. She took courses in jewelry making and spent hours pouring over photos of historic European nobles in authentic accoutrement. Greatly influenced by her Russian heritage, Marina began to incorporate elaborate, often gemstone-encrusted silver- and gold-plated headdresses, shoes, and other articles of clothing for her 13-inch (33-cm) porcelain beauties. These hand-beaded costumes alone could take as long as 300 to 400 hours to complete. Marina’s exotic dolls with their signature, hand-painted “liquid” eyes soon found an exacting and appreciative audience, but despite the long days, the requests for her dolls eventually exceeded her capacity to create them.
* * *
“One look at the tiny, delicate pieces that would have to be translated into the resin medium told me it would be a challenge,” says Catrina, “but I knew we were the right company to do it.”
An ambitious schedule was set with first pieces expected in a matter of weeks so the resin dolls could be exhibited at a show planned in conjunction with the Winter Olympics and an announcement of the collaboration between Marina and Dollfair could be made at IDEX Premiere in January 2010. With both sides working feverishly, their goals were met. The first resin prototype, a nude Clymenestra, debuted at Dragonspace store on Vancouver’s Granville Island on Feb. 6.
“The first resin parts far exceeded my expectations,” says Marina. “They are of incredible quality and silky smooth, and the skin appears just as my porcelains, but more durable.” For the time being, the artist has decided to continue using her steel-spring jointing. Without the brittleness of porcelain she has been able to eliminate most of the leather lining of the joints, choosing to continue this method only at the neck and chest. Marina plans to release her first edition of 20 resin Enchanted Dolls in the spring. They will be unclothed and nestled in painted tin pencil boxes, which will be designed by Marina and painted by Italian fantasy artist Natalia Pierandrei.
“Art must always be changing,” adds Marina. She is already at work with other ideas for her resin dolls, such as limited editions of costumes and accessories and wig and eyelash choices. With the Catrina’s help and expertise, she will also offer a variety of more intricate hand poses and a raised foot design to accommodate shoes with high heels. With this new alliance, it looks as though the ardent fans of Marina’s Enchanted Dolls of can look forward to many more years of pure enchantment.
| |
