Dangerous Old Dollmakers Introduction

In 2012, I created the Medicine Doll Project and invited a small group of women to participate in an unfolding exploration of healing, creativity, symbolism, and self-discovery through the process of dollmaking.
At the time, I had been developing a working curriculum based on my research, years of dollmaking, and a growing understanding that handmade figures could hold emotional truths that ordinary conversation often could not. I invited women to read, reflect, and make dolls alongside me. Together we followed symbols, stories, memories, body sensations, dreams, grief, intuition, and imagination wherever they wanted to lead us.

But what mattered most was never simply the dolls themselves. It was what happened through the making of them.

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Something profound happens when women gather with the intention to create, heal, transform, and connect through the making of art dolls. Not to compete nor to perform. Not to become polished or perfect. But to listen more deeply to themselves and to one another through image, symbol, cloth, texture, and form.....and so much more.

Over time, the dolls become mirrors, witnesses, companions, memory keepers, talisman, storytellers, protectors, and containers for emotions.

When the original project began in 2012, the world was very different. I used Yahoo Groups to communicate with participants and share lessons. The women who joined were entering midlife, and so was I. Over the years I continued teaching, gathering stories, collecting wisdom, and deepening my understanding of what happens when women engage in symbolic dollmaking. Eventually that work became The Healing Doll Way.

As I continued to age and teach, another layer of the work began to emerge. My need—and the need I witnessed in other women—to connect, create, witness, be witnessed, and make meaningful art had not diminished. If anything, it had grown stronger.

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In June 2026, I am introducing the Dangerous Old Dollmakers Project.
It is rooted specifically in art dollmaking, art journaling, and storytelling. 

The doll is not simply a craft project or decorative object. She becomes a symbolic figure capable of holding what words alone often cannot. Through making her, women frequently encounter hidden emotions, forgotten stories, inner conflicts, longings, grief, resilience, imagination, body wisdom, and parts of themselves that have been patiently waiting to be seen.

Looking back now, I can see that the seeds of the Dangerous Old Dollmaker were being planted long before I had words for her.
Six years ago, I began a healing journey when I stopped feeling well. I searched far and wide for answers—a diagnosis, treatment, therapy, something that would explain what was happening to me. I visited alternative healers and physicians within the medical system. There were occasional days of relief, but gradually there were more days of dis-ease.

I began paying close attention to my body's persistent language—its sensations, anxieties, symptoms, and signals. Nothing was consistent. There were waves of grief, moments of healing, fears about aging, deep fatigue, and hidden stories that seemed to live beneath the surface of my life. I wanted answers. What was happening? Why was it happening? How could I heal?

My greatest moments of relief came in the early mornings when my creative soul would awaken with the name of a doll, an image, or an idea for an art journal page. On those days I felt alive. I made art and could feel creative energy moving through my blood. Then the next day it might be gone. I could barely get out of bed.

Eventually, I began losing weight for no apparent reason.
A quiet voice inside me said, "Maybe it's an eating disorder."
How could that be? Eating disorders happened to young girls, didn't they?
A visit to an eating disorder treatment center in Minnesota confirmed what I had not expected to hear.

That kind of listening, paying attention, and committing to a difficult healing process changes a person.

It has changed me.

And it is still changing me.

I find myself less interested in polished answers and more interested in what is true. Less interested in appearances and more interested in what lives underneath. I am increasingly drawn toward metaphors, symbol, image, embodiment, memory, ritual, creativity, and the slow wisdom that emerges through making things with my hands.

Out of years of living with chronic, unexplained symptoms and receiving an eating disorder diagnosis emerged the words:

Dangerous Old Dollmaker.

She is not dangerous in the way our culture often imagines danger.
She is dangerous because she refuses to disappear.
She trusts her intuition.
She refuses the pressure to reduce her life into something tidy, pleasing, explainable, quiet, or small.
She trusts what can be known through play, imagination, and the creative force.
She trusts the intelligence of the body.
She trusts symbols, dreams, grief, creativity, intuition, and the healing power of making dolls by hand.

And perhaps most importantly, she understands that many women are longing for spaces where the deeper parts of themselves are seen, heart and welcome.

She is one of those women.

Through deep creative practice, the Dangerous Old Dollmaker learns that she can be:

• Strong and vulnerable
• Wise and still learning
• Grieving and joyful
• Creative and exhausted
• Spiritual and questioning
• Healing and struggling at the same time
  
  

This understanding has not come from theory.
It has come from experience.
It has come from making dolls.
It has come from living a life deeply dedicated to seeking and finding truth.

That is why I am creating the Dangerous Old Dollmakers Project.
This project is an invitation to past, present, and future students who feel called to the path of symbolic dollmaking and embodied creative exploration.

The book The Healing Doll Way will be required reading for those who choose to participate. It contains the structure, language, practices, stories, and accumulated wisdom that form the foundation of this approach to healing dollmaking. More than an instructional guide, it serves as a companion for understanding the symbolic, emotional, and transformative processes that often unfold through the making of healing dolls.

You do not need to be an experienced artist.
You do not need to know how to sew perfectly.
You only need a willingness to listen, imagine, explore, and allow the dollmaking process to reveal what is waiting beneath the surface.
I do not yet know exactly what form all of this will take.

But I know the spirit of it.
I know it belongs to community.
I know it belongs to women who long for deeper conversations, meaningful creativity, shared wisdom, laughter, storytelling, honest reflection, and the companionship of others navigating the rich and complicated terrain of aging.
And I know it is time to gather again.
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If you are interested in joining the Dangerous Old Dollmakers Circle, please send me an email at [email protected]
I am beginning to gather women who feel called to explore healing, symbolism, storytelling, art journaling, and dollmaking in community.
I would be delighted to hear from you.

One More Thing....

Root Weaver

​I often laugh out loud at the fact that my art has almost always centered on making dolls—and dolls, after all, are bodies.I often laugh out loud at the fact that my art has almost always centered on making dolls—and dolls, after all, are bodies.
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These bodies have an inner ecology and an outer landscape. They express emotion, feeling, story, pain, celebration, resilience, vulnerability, and transformation. In so many ways, they mirror the human experience.
Looking back, I can see that I have spent decades exploring the mysteries of being human through cloth, thread, symbols, and doll forms without fully realizing what I was doing.

My dollmaking has saved me over and over again.

It has given shape to experiences I could not put into words. It has helped me listen to what was happening beneath the surface of my life. It has provided companionship during grief, uncertainty, illness, healing, and change.
​
The lessons and meanings that emerge through an eating disorder recovery journey are many and deeply personal. Yet one thing seems undeniable: the body has a way of demanding our attention. It asks us to listen. It asks us to become curious. It asks us to discover who we are beneath our habits, assumptions, fears, and stories.
Perhaps that is one reason I find myself returning again and again to dollmaking.
The dolls remind me that every body carries a story.
And every story longs to be heard.