ON SALE through tomorrow!!! Kimonos, Kimonos, Kimonos… and ponchos by Atelier Mandaline for Le Galeriste! Artworks shown are: Blue Ridge, Siren, Beautiful City, and Elk Mountain in that order but you can order them in any of my artworks! Shop at https://www.legaleriste.com/atelier.mandaline #ateliermandaline #legaleriste

All the mama crier drama yesterday completely overshadowed my NEW ARRIVALS in my Le Galeriste boutique ~ the Asheville and Georgia collections are now available for men and new styles for women! Shop from https://www.legaleriste.com/atelier.mandaline or use the button on the Home page. AND everything on the boutique is ON SALE through 9/1!! #ateliermandaline #legaleriste

Today one of the weirdest things in my history of doll repair happened. I recently restocked my 3-sound Mama crying voices. The factory sometimes uses old batteries, so I check all the voices when I get them and again when I’m packing them for customers. Well, this morning I went to ship one out and when I tested it the Baby Shark song started playing. I frantically tested them all and all but one played Baby Shark. Thank goodness I had one of the regular ones to ship out! After shipping the normal one I tested them all again and the second time they played a weird song, which I thought was in Chinese. I’ve now been schooled by the people of the internet ~ the second song is “Johnny Johnny”, a viral YouTube hit with young children. Once someone told me the lyrics I could understand them. The singer has a heavy Chinese accent. If you squeeze the box a third time it then makes the baby sounds it’s supposed to.

How did these songs get on these voices? I feel like I’m going crazy! I KNOW I tested every one of these when they arrived and they were all normal. I’m a little scared to go in my office now! But anyway, since the songs are very popular I will offer them for sale. Hopefully they won’t expand their repertoire after you install them! You can stop the song and go on to the next sound by squeezing the box twice, so you don’t have to listen to the whole song. These are squeeze boxes so you need to squeeze them rather than just press them. Therefore they work best in cloth body dolls and plush. Leave the stuffing loose enough around the box that you can squeeze the back and front at the same time. Purchase these from my shops on the Home page.

Here’s a glimpse of my newest collection: Palm Beach. “Calibogue Sunset”, “Palmetto Evening”, and “Sunset Over Sound” are all inspired by Hilton Head Island’s South Beach. Look for them soon in my Le Galeriste, Etsy, and other shops on the Home page.

If you've been following my Instagram or Facebook posts the past few days you will be aware I have expanded my Doll Collection in my Le Galeriste boutique. I now offer home goods and men's shirts. I know I have a lot of male followers who happen to be doll collectors, doll artists, and doll doctors and I wanted to offer the opportunity to wear a favorite doll to them. I have also received many requests over the years from ladies who prefer the men's cut tee shirts and want to buy my designs in men's sizes, so I am really happy to be able to fulfill that wish!

The home goods are a wonderful way to display favorite dolls in a unique way without having to own the doll. In fact, all the dolls featured are my own one of a kind art dolls, long sent off to new homes. Now I can enjoy looking at them again even though the dolls are no longer in my possession.  I feel Vadoma, my Blythe art doll, in particular lends herself to the home collection in the fall. She makes terrific Halloween decorations! Shop for all these in my Le Galeriste collection from the Home page. 

Select pieces from the Doll Collection for Home.

Select pieces from the Doll Collection for men.

Recently I discovered a new mini doll in the "big eyes" genre: the Barbie Extra Minis doll. These came out in 2021, but I never saw them. I deal mostly in doll restoration so I encounter many more older and vintage dolls, and my daughter has outgrown dolls so I don't see the new ones while shopping anymore. "Big Eyes" dolls became very popular in the Mod era, the late 1960s to early 1970s. Almost every woman of a certain age owned a Bradley cloth big eyes doll or knew someone who owned one. These were solely display dolls. One of the most enduringly popular BEDs, as I will abbreviate Big Eyes Dolls, is Blythe. Blythe was originally made by Kenner in the 1970s and was notable for her color change eyes. The old Kenner Blythe dolls are worth a fortune today. Blythe was re-released in the millennial era by Takara and Hasbro, the former converting the older fashion-sized doll to a mini doll and packaging her with their Littlest Pet Shop line. Those LPS Blythes are now retired and becoming valuable. Takara is still making Blythe dolls in three sizes, Mini (4 inch), Midi (8 inch), and the traditional 10-12 inch depending on whether she has a Licca style straight arm and leg body or a ball-jointed articulated body.

The articulated doll bodies are increasingly popular with consumers. Disney produces them in their mini Animators' line and in some of their deluxe exclusives sold only at the Disney parks and stores. Certain Barbie dolls come with articulated bodies as well, but the Extra Minis are the first mini dolls I've come across by Mattel.

Both BED and articulated dolls have become increasingly desirable to doll artists, as customizing their eye chips, repainting their faces or "re-bodying" vintage heads has become a widespread pastime all over the world. Well-known doll artists command thousands of dollars for just one of their OOAK (one-of-a-kind) art dolls. Today I am comparing the new Extra Minis to a couple of the most-customized mini dolls, the Disney Animators' mini dolls and the LPS Blythe.

The Barbie Extra Minis dolls feature fully-articulated bodies, special shimmery eyes, pierced ears, and elaborate hairstyles. They really do come across as "extra"! The blue-haired doll is #3 in the series. Check out her partly-flocked head to appear as though one side is shaved! This is the kind of detail you don't see from Mattel after around 1970 or so. #3 reminds me of Alice, the Cara Delevingne character in Only Murders in the Building (which you MUST watch if you haven't!). The Extra Minis seems to be more representative of the diverse American population than traditional Barbie dolls as well, with black and POC dolls who might be Asian, Hispanic or mixed-race. The punk hairstyles could be appropriated by any race, so it's easier to re-do them as you want.

From left to right, the Barbie Extra Minis #1 doll, the Frozen Elsa Disney Animators' mini dolls (not to be confused with the 6 inch mini Disney dolls sold at places like Target; the Animators' series is smaller and exclusive to Disney stores), and the LPS Blythe doll. As you can see the Disney dolls are smaller and do not have as many points of articulation as the Barbies. Some of them have painted tights or stockings and others are all flesh colored, whereas the Barbies have molded underpants the same color as their skin. Disney dolls also have a toddler figure with larger feet. LPS Blythe has the fewest articulation points, "real" instead of painted eyes (which doll artists just love to switch out with custom made eye chips), and painted underwear. Her figure is the most mature in terms of bustiness and she is the most top-heavy of all the dolls. She also has tiny high-heeled feet, extremely hard to find shoes for.

LPS Blythe, and probably also Takara Mini Blythe but I don't have one of those, can wear some of the Extra Minis clothing. I don't believe the Extra Minis could wear hers. A-line dresses like this one from the #1 Barbie Extra Minis doll will just be roomier and longer on Blythe. The shoes are not interchangeable.

Disney Animators' mini dolls can wear most of the Extra Minis clothing but the fit is different because of the Disney doll's toddler body. As you can see, the sweatsuit from Barbie #3 shown in the first photo is midriff-bearing on the Disney doll but not on the Barbie. Despite being shorter the Disney doll's feet are bigger so the dolls cannot exchange shoes. The Disney doll's hands are too large to go through some of the Barbie arms. The Barbie Extra Minis, in contrast, can wear pretty much any of the Disney clothes, as most of the height difference is in their heads. I am not including the Barbie Kelly or Chelsea dolls in this comparison because they are not BED, but I believe the Extra Minis clothing and shoes will fit them about the same as the Disney Animators' mini dolls. The 6 inch Disney non-Animators' dolls sold everywhere are much too large for any of the Barbie clothes despite being only a half inch taller. Their toddler bodies are just larger all over and their feet are huge, most likely to enable easier standing during play. Disney, in my opinion, is well aware of the prevalence of the Animators' series among doll artists' recreations and produced them with a more mature audience in mind.

I hope this comparison is helpful when you are buying dolls and doll clothing or considering dolls for your own OOAK creations. You can purchase many different kinds of dolls, including those shown here, from my shops on the Home page.

My Black & White Collection is now available for men and for your home! Here is just a small sampling: shirts, toiletry bags, tote bags, pillows, tapestries, table linens, gift wrap, and more, all made to order in your choice of artwork. Shop from the Le Galeriste button on the Home page.

My Black & White Collection men’s collection: choose long or short sleeved tee shirts, zip neck shirts, toiletry bag, and tote bag, all in sophisticated, easily mixable black and white.

My Black & White Home Collection: tapestries, pillows, table linens, and gift wrap add a touch of elegance to your decor.

Today is the second-to-last day of my Back to School Sale on eBay and Etsy, and it just happens to include select wearable art pieces featuring my painting, Beautiful City. I painted Beautiful City in 1996. It took until 1997 to actually finish it. It's an oil painting that started as a composition exercise assigned by the late, great Paul Hartley, an amazing artist and professor at ECU. New artists are famously bad at using color properly. Composition is an important element that tends to get thrown out the window when an artist starts using color. So we were told to create a composition using only color, no images. Once we had achieved a solid composition with the colors, we were allowed to superimpose an image over the underlying form. I had just returned from a summer internship in Italy so I chose Italian scenes as my subject. I was heavily influenced by Hartley and similar artists to add hidden images to my work, so this is a dual painting. If you look at it right side up you see scenes from Firenze (Florence) and if you turn it upside down you see scenes from Venezia (Venice). Thus the name, Beautiful City, or La Bella Cittá in Italian. Although the mother and child is front and center, if you look carefully you will see it is just a small part of the subject matter. My Madonna is modeled after the fresco at the entrance to my street in Firenze, but you see this theme throughout Italy. Pretty much every street has its own saint, the Madonna being the most popular by far, and people leave offerings to them every day. I wanted to capture the intense light, saturated color, and typical sights of Italy and I was, and am pleased with this work. You can find the entire collection of wearable art and home goods in my Le Galeriste shop, but a few are available and discounted through 8/23 in my Etsy shop as well. Link to all my shops from the Home page.

Great News, Guys! You’re no longer left out from my Le Galeriste wearable art! Select pieces from my Asheville & Beautiful City collections are now available for men, with more to come. Shop using the Le Galeriste button on the Home Page.

New! The Home Collection is live on Le Galeriste! Now you can order my artwork on pillows, wall tapestries, gift wrap, table linens, & more. Shop using the Le Galeriste button on the Home page. #ateliermandaline #legaleriste