THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, November 24, 1994 TAG: 9411220219
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 28 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Business
SOURCE: BY JANELLE LA BOUVE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 75 lines
BOXES OF MINIATURE body parts line the shelves. Tiny heads, arms and legs are scattered about a work station along one wall.
It's the workroom at New Creations Dolls of Chesapeake.
In the showroom out front, dolls assembled from the parts are on display, each one looking like a well-dressed moppet with skin so life-like and smooth that customers can't resist touching.
``I wanted the dolls in my shop to look like children,'' said Carolyn Hudgins, who opened the store Nov. 1 at Battlefield Commerce Center on Battlefield Boulevard.
For months, Hudgins shopped at flea markets and antique stores in Virginia and North Carolina looking for just the right props to use in displaying her dolls.
She spared no attention to detail.
A boy and a girl doll cling to the ivy-clad ropes of a pair of swings hung from the ceiling. Several dolls crowded in a playpen look as if they had just climbed in for a romp. A cradle, high chair and rocking horse and a carousel horse provide settings for others.
Hudgins says that it is important to give each doll a personality.
``I want the dolls to look natural,'' she said. ``I don't know all the fancy techniques. But I have always been able to draw and to paint.''
Perhaps it is those life-like features which can tear away womanly reserve to bring out the little girl in her customers.
Nannie Cummings and her daughter, Patricia Bailey, were fascinated by what they found on a recent visit to Hudgins' store. They especially liked one doll with a pretty face and long, red hair. They were excited, too, about a doll with puckered lips and another with a pouting expression.
``I passed the shop one day and was almost late for an appointment because I couldn't get away from the window,'' said Cummings, whose own mother had passed down her love for dolls. ``When my mother died at 68, she still wanted to have a doll on her bed. Mother kept her doll from childhood. She kept it wrapped up for many years. Now, I have that doll and want to have it restored.''
``Dolls are gorgeous,'' said Patricia Bailey smiling. ``I have loved dolls since I was a little girl. Dolls keep you young.''
Hudgins makes dolls with a variety of facial features and costumes to represent any nationality. She makes bald baby dolls wearing headbands, open mouthed toddlers with visible baby teeth, puckered and pouting lips, smiles, angelic expressions, grimaces or tongues just visible between parted teeth.
It took Hudgins a while to determine just which business venture she wanted to pursue.
``I'd been after her to do some sort of crafts for 10 years, and she never picked up on it until the doll babies came in,'' said her husband, James Hudgins, who owns Hudgins' Linehandling Service.
Carolyn Hudgins decided to open her own shop after attending a class in doll-making at a shop run by her sister-in-law in High Point, N.C. She was intrigued by the way students responded to the dolls they made.
``They'd start laughing,'' Hudgins said. ``Then, one by one, they would start talking to their dolls. They had a ball.''
Now Hudgins is teaching students of her own.
``I hope that same kind of thing will happen among my students,'' she said. MEMO: An open house will be held at New Creations Dolls from 1-6 p.m. Dec. 3.
ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by STEVE EARLEY
``I wanted the dolls in my shop to look like children,'' says
Carolyn Hudgins, who opened New Creations Dolls of Chesapeake this
month at Battlefield Commerce Center.
by CNB