ADO Featured Artist: Black-Eyed Suzie
This week's interview is with Sarah Faber, of Black-Eyed Suzie. Enjoy!
(originally appeared on the ADO blog)
Please tell us about yourself. What is your name? Where do you live? What makes you tick? My name is Sarah Faber and I live in Montréal, Québec. I'm inspired by the beautiful architecture that surrounds me, and I love living in a bilingual city. I'm currently completing a Master's degree in English literature and Creative Writing and am working on my first novel. My dolls are often inspired by the books I read, and the stories I invent. I miss the ocean. I'm married to my favourite person on earth. I love my cats a lot. I like things that are beautiful but also a bit dark and menacing in some way. And funny, too. I am a spacey dreamer; I think about my imaginary garden all the time. It will have a rose bower, and a whole section for flowers that only bloom at night.
When did you start making dolls? Why did you start making dolls?
I started making dolls in 2005 while my husband and I were living in a trailer in the woods in his native Maine. As a Canadian, I was unable to work in the US, so while he went off to work each day, I worked on my writing and tried not end up like Jack Nicholson in The Shining. I decided I needed a hobby - something I could do with my hands. I had a few Dame Darcy dolls that I loved and would carry around from room to room with me, so I decided to make myself a few more clay friends.
Who or what influences you? Inspires you?
I love the artwork of Edward Gorey and Rozi Demant; they both feature figures with slightly abnormal proportions. I studied anatomy for two years and I love looking through my old textbooks. Fairy Tales inspire me tremendously. Also: Shakespeare, Virginia Woolf, Gothic novels, costume dramas, Victorian fashion. I am full of romantic notions about/ nostalgia for times in which I never lived. (But I am also very grateful for feminism...it's a contradiction I allow myself.) Tell us a little about your dolls and your process for making them. Materials, preliminary sketches, inspiration, etc. I'm not particularly good at sketching, so I don't do preliminary drawings. I usually just work from an image in my head, or sometimes a photo if I'm doing a portrait or custom work. I use either Paperclay or polymer clay; Paperclay is my darling, but it does takes so very long to work with that I like having the option of both. For costumes I love silk, cotton, lace, linen - I prefer to work with natural fibres because I love their texture and drape. Do you have a favorite doll? It can be handmade by you, handmade by someone else, or even (gasp) mass production. My mom used to make beautiful cloth dolls, so the one she made for me as an infant will always mean the most; my shop is named after her. My very first Dame Darcy doll is also very special to me; she was a birthday gift from my husband. Her name is Clementine. Besides making dolls, what do you do? Job, other creative pursuits, hobbies, etc. I teach English Composition. I try to be a novelist. What are some of your favorite: movies, books, websites, magazines, foods, tv shows? (Any or all!) books: Lolita, The Waves, The Rings of Saturn, The Bloody Chamber, Dorothy L'Amour, Mopus (written by my man) movies: Blood Tea Red String & Coraline are amazing stop-motion animation. Also, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf for its sheer, raw angst. websites: cbc.ca, thisamericanlife.org, Etsy.com magazines: Vanity Fair is my monthly guilty pleasure. The New York Review of Books if I want to feel erudite. Lula for sweet, gooey eye-candy. Bitch if I'm feeling cranky or outraged by injustice. TV shows: Dexter, Damages, Big Love, ER since I was 18...it's my version of Coronation Street. [ed. note: Coronation Street is a British soap opera] If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be and why? I want to move to Cape Breton Island on the East Coast of Canada because it's the most beautiful place I've ever been. But I wouldn't mind if Paris was right nearby, for weekend culture and pastry. Where do you see yourself in one year? Five years? Ten years? In one year I hope to be full-time Etsying and writing instead of teaching, and to have finished my book. In five I'd like to be living in Cape Breton with a couple of kids, my husband, and a garden. In ten, I want an even bigger garden and maybe a little studio all my own. Mostly I want a happy, healthy family, some animals, some art, some walks by the ocean. 
