LaJuana's
Originals
featuring
Lil Darlin' Originals -
One-Of-A-Kind Art Dolls,
BearFolk & Friends,
The Nursery & Fashion Accessories
Artist Profile
Hi! My name is LaJuana
Dyke, creator of LaJuana's Originals, home of Lil Darlin' Originals!
Creating has always been a big part of my life and with the loving
support of my family who have had to endure everything from dining room
table turned craft room central, crazy work and show schedules, to lack
of home cooked meals...I believe we must own a good portion of Subway by
now!...and yet we have all managed to survive. I definitely could
not have done any of it without them. My wonderful children,
Shala, Shannon and CJ, have thankfully not held it against me and have
gone so far as to bless my husband and me with 4 beautiful
grandchildren: Chance, Kyla, Makaela and Lilli!
These days I am no longer fighting for space on the dining room table
(or is that my family is no longer fighting for space on the dining room
table?) -
I have a fantastic studio...though many of my creations still tend to
spill over into other rooms of the house no matter how hard I try to
conform (an artist conforming!!)... I must give wonderful credit where it is due - my
husband, Carl, God bless him, is determined to stick it out to the very end
and put up with me (and Subway!) and my Lil Darlin's...anyone with an
artistic spouse knows that can be nothing less than true love (some
people believe we artists are not always so easy to live with!
What!!).
Though I enjoy many different media, and as there's just so many hours
in the day, the fact remains that there's just not enough time to
practice them all! I've needed to concentrate on what I enjoy the
most and that is sculpting (Lil Darlin's to include all my sculpted Art
Dolls), my Bears & Bunnies (BearFolk & Friends) and Soft Sculpture
(Cloth Dolls)...I've expanded just a bit more with the addition of
Reborn Dolls (The Nursery) - the excuse I use for starting just one more
art form is the idea that I would love to begin sculpting my own line of
babies soon! Oh, and then there's the Fashion Totes &
Accessories...I'm thinking it might just be time, again, to maybe at
least think about cutting back a bit...
I began sculpting back around 1996 (where has the time gone!!). It
was a scary venture, looking at that lump of clay sitting in front of
me. It was something that I had never tried before but knew that I
desperately wanted to be able to sculpt. All the OOAK dolls I'd
seen in magazines were just so amazing and I so wanted to create my own.
Well, I've been sculpting for a few years now and my little guys have
gone thru quite a bit of transformation but I think they have come thru
the ordeal rather nicely! We still have a long way to go - the
learning curve is never reached! There are always so many new
techniques to learn, new clays to experiment with and there is always,
ALWAYS improvements to be made in my sculpting abilities! I
believe a good sculptor realizes that she will never know it all and is
always on the quest to improve her art.
As much as I love sculpting, I've always got that desperate urge to
cross over into other media...and that's where I get myself into trouble!
I believe if I could just get a few additional hours added to each day things
would really work out much better for me! In the meantime, while I
await those additional precious moments, I will continue to create
all sorts of fun and unique items from the limits of my studio (actually
limits might be too narrow of a term...okay, my studio, spare bedroom
and kitchen/dining room) located in beautiful downtown Andover Kansas!
I hope you will enjoy my creations as much as I have enjoyed creating
them! And please stop back by...new pieces are always in the
process.
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