Doll Making in Creative Community

By Carol Woolum Roberts

Gaining Through Loss

Try this:  Do not be surprised if you are resistant to this task.  It is very powerful—so powerful that in many cultures, it is considered a religious act.  I am talking about doll-making.  Draw to mind a loss you wish to memorialize or transform.  Now, using whatever materials strike you as appropriate, make a doll that reflects your many emotions.  Some dolls involve frippery and finery.  Others are made from twigs and sticks.  You will know the right form for you, and it is that form you should choose to make.  Be prepared for a powerful shift in consciousness. (From The Sound of Paper by Julia Cameron).

I have given this assignment with three different creative groups I have been involved with over the past twenty years.

The first creative group was called Canyon Creek Creatives.  Each month we would gather together in a house along Canyon Creek in the Burke Canyon above Wallace, Idaho.  I started the group as a sounding board for the book I was writing.  But then others started sharing their creativity, and we started doing creative assignments each month.  One month we created dolls.  I have no recollection of what my doll was about that I shared that day.  I do remember a couple of the ladies who shared their dolls.  The sharing of these dolls showed we understood a true sense of the creative community we had formed.

Another creative community I belonged to was started by my friend April and myself.  We invited some of the women who we graduated from high school with to meet monthly and do creative projects.  We called ourselves the Creative Mastermind Group, and here is what our Facebook Group page said about us:

Creative Masterminds Group is an awesome group of women who have known each other for decades and come together on a monthly basis to share their creativity, inspiration, love and encouragement with one another.

One weekend we went on a retreat to Hope, Idaho where one of our classmates lived in a cabin.  We did the doll exercise at this retreat.  Women I have known most of my life, coming together to share their dolls.

Last August a friend helped gather a group of six women, including myself, to commit to meeting together once a week for twelve weeks to go through the Julia Cameron book “The Artist’s Way”.  One week I gave these women the doll assignment.  Originally we were going to present them at our last session at the end of November.  Then group members were sick so we finally had our end of session potluck and doll sharing at the end of January. This Sacred Circle Primo group learned to connect, trust and respect one another in a very short period of time.

Each of these creative groups were totally different.  Each had a totally different make up.  I had different relationships with people in each of these groups.

There was one thing that each of these creative communities shared, that is essential to doing and sharing this doll assignment…trust.

In my experience, you have to have a mutual trust with each person in the group who is sharing the dolls.  Because the dolls are special.  The dolls help you share some deep inner feelings, losses and transformations in your life.  No two dolls are ever the same.  Each person always has their own interpretation of the assignment.

The sharing can get very raw, very emotional, very real.

It is a beautiful thing.

Creative community is something I need in my life.  To share with others what they are creatively working on, what creative things they are processing, and what inspirations they are dealing with is exciting to me. 

I have been fortunate to have these three groups over the past twenty years.  Each one worked with the people who were a part of the community.

It has proved to me over and over how essential community is to each of us.  If you would like to be a part of a creative community, think about joining our Sacred Community Garden for the spring season, or the year.  You can find more information here.

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Have you ever been a part of a creative community?  What was your experience?

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