Art, Part Two Ch. 06

Art, part two. Ch. 06

Art finds out about Dr. Heidi's land of the dolls.

Heidi's place was an up-scale neighborhood of narrow brick row houses or townhouses. They shared common walls and looked like they were four or five stories high. The first level was a garage and a front entrance that must have led directly upstairs. Heidi pulled her Mini-Cooper into the garage and there sat a nice shiny American Harley Motorcycle. "Wow, whose bike?"

"It's mine, Jonesy. You're looking at my pride and joy on wheels. That's a 1250 V Rod Muscle machine with a Hard Tail."

This was a woman who's a bit different. I know a lot of women ride motorcycles, but not many want to wrestle with one that size. I was impressed. "Come on I'll give you a quick tour of my place and then maybe I can dig us up something to eat. I live alone and eat when I feel like it so the food choices are limited, but we won't starve. Maybe I'll give you a ride on my bike later."

Each floor was narrow with windows only on the ends. The second floor was a decent sized kitchen and eating area and a comfortable looking living or sitting room. The third floor had a den in the front and toward the back there was a fairly large bedroom and bathroom. The front of the townhouse was a busy street, but there was a small park in the back that provided some greenery and privacy. Off the bedroom was a small balcony overlooking the park. "In case you're wondering where you'll sleep, the couch in the den opens up into a bed. I love this room. With the sliding doors to the balcony open I can hear all the sights and sounds of the outside. The traffic noises at night aren't much and they really don't intrude. We all pay for the arboretum you see out back and it brings Mother Nature almost right into the room. I sleep in the buff, and unless someone's hanging in those trees out there, I have complete privacy without closing the drapes."

"The spiral staircase over there leads to my workshop on the top floor. I have a small lift that goes from the garage to the top floor so I can bring up all my supplies. Well what do you think of my home, Jonesy?"

"You're asking someone who normally lives in a two box like rooms called an 'efficiency apartment' to comment on your home? I don't know much about Heidi the person, but what I've seen so far fits my first impression of you. I like your no nonsense kitchen and your comfortable living room. I only had a glimpse of the bookcase along one wall, but I saw an eclectic mix of books, from classics and science to contemporary novels. You probably spend considerable time reading, and I'll bet the chair in the corner of your bedroom is your favorite reading place. Your whole place is furnished with things you like and I doubt you give a rat's ass what other people think of your selection. The only note that doesn't fit is all of the dolls. I wasn't counting, but each room has an assortment. There so many I had the impression each room seemed occupied with 'people'. I noticed they were all dressed or outfitted to represent different characters or professions, some I would guess came from classic stories."

"Jonesy, you continue to amaze me. You're right, the corner of my bedroom is my favorite reading place and I don't give a 'rat's ass' what other people think about my selections. You didn't comment on the obvious. My home is a solitary place without any accommodation for anyone else. My 'dolls' are part of that solitary life and have been for a long time. It's not that I'm particularly anti-social; I just enjoy my own company. I have a few close friends like Lisa, who spend time with me here, but mostly it's me and my dolls. I assign names and personalities to them and they fill in the gaps in my life. But all of this touches a part of me I don't think I'm ready to share with you. Let me show you my workshop; maybe that will answer some questions."

On the top floor there were two large skylights to provide natural light and both had sophisticated privacy shutters. It seems that Heidi values her privacy even up here. She said, "I make most of my own dolls and have since I was a teenager. They were pretty crude copies of standard dolls at first, but over the years they've gotten far more complex. I make them for my own pleasure and enjoy the challenge of making them as physiologically true as I can. I can't part with some that I made years ago, but when I kept trying to improve each new version, I started to get overwhelmed with them. It's a hobby, but my expenses run high so I started marketing them on the Internet as Doc's Dolls. There's a small but ready market for them and I suppose if I wanted to go into mass production, I could make a good living. Here let me show you.

"This is my wire 'skeleton' body. I've used stainless steel wire for my 'bones' and I'm very proud of the ball joint that I helped develop. I restrict the movement to our actual joint limits so my skeleton can be articulated just like the human body. The hands and feet I have injection molded with a projection that can be cemented into sockets on my 'skeleton'. The company I use can insert carbon fibers in their molds that become part of the hands and feet so I can shape them later. My doll's hand can hold a tool or be open handed as needed.

"You didn't comment, but all of my dolls are male. From what you said about your obsession with the female body, you can understand why I focus on the male body. In fact my injection molded penis and testicles are my finest innovations and they come in different sizes. I have a temperature sensitive fiber inserted so my male dolls can have his member decorously tucked into his shorts at room temperature. When you hold the penis and bring it up to your body temperature, the penis becomes fully erect and stays there until it cools back to room temperature. Obviously my anatomically correct dolls carry a warning and are not sold to children.

"My skulls are also injected molded with inserted fibers so the jaw can be moved to open the mouth or close it. I hand dip the skulls in molding wax to build up layers of wax to the point where I can sculpt individual features. I have to use a magnifying and fine tools to sculpt at this scale, but I've had years of practice. When I think I've got the features and shape of the head I want, I set it in a fixture and pour a plaster mixture around it. When the plaster sets up, I heat it and the wax melts and runs out leaving a cavity around the skull with the features in the mold. I pour in a melted mix of the plastic resins into the cavity and when that sets up, I've got my doll's head. I paint on the faces using paint that bonds thermally with the plastic, and if I've achieved what I want, I'm ready for the rest of the body. Sometime I'll make a dozen heads before I'm satisfied.

"My wire skeleton body, complete with head, hands, feet and genitals, is ready for the final sculpting. I use molding wax and hand form the wax into arms, legs and torso around the wire 'skeleton'. I usually sculpt a general body and then add or remove wax to get the final body structure. My background in physiology has implanted male images in my mind until I can usually get what I want in a short time. Then it's just like making the head. I set the whole doll in a fixture, pour in the plaster for the mold, and after the plaster sets, melt the wax from around the skeleton and pour in the resin. When I've painted the body and cured the paint bond, my "one of a kind" doll is finished except for any finishing touches I want to add.

"You do know I could go on for hours about my hobby and most people eyes would glaze over, but I could see you were following everything I said. In fact it looked like you were ready to interrupt with questions a number of times. I knew it wasn't the dolls, but the details of the construction. I saw how you had adapted or modified components from other applications for the Jamison machine, so I figured you'd be interested."

"Heidi, I think I just learned more about you in the last few minutes when you talked about your dolls than I think I could have in hours of conversation. It wasn't just the ingenuity you used, but also that you did all of this yourself. I know something about the fabrication of stainless steel and I can imagine the kinds of fixtures you had to construct first before you start putting your 'skeleton' together. I have a number of questions and I'd like to know more detail sometime, but the dolls themselves also interest me. Besides the mechanics of the dolls construction, you also have considerable talent as a sculptress and a painter. Their eyes seemed to follow me as I moved through a room and it really did feel like your house was full of 'people'.

"You act like people don't mean much in your life and yet your doll's faces show a great deal of expression. You couldn't do that without being an observer of real people. You've also gone to a lot of trouble and expense to equip your dolls as real people. I took a good look at one decked out as a rock climber. His equipment, like climber shoes, wall hammer and even pitons to drive into the rock wall, are scaled replicas of actual equipment used by rock climbers."

"That's one of my signature features. All of Doc's Dolls are as realistically equipped as I can make them. You probably aren't surprised that most of my buyers are women and they make specific request about not only to the size of his body parts, but also the type of equipment he should have. One woman specified that her male doll should be equipped as a diver complete with a face mask and air supply. I can only hazard a guess as to where she was planning on sending him.

"I had a second motive for showing you the details of my doll making. Come on into the next room and I'll show you."