A definite high point of the show was that we did our first ever radio interview. It was only about five minutes long, but we got to talk about what it’s like to be doll makers on a daily basis, our thoughts about art and a bit about our plush making process. The interview was for the weekly show Convention Crashers on pdx.fm and airs today at 3p.m. After that, the show will be available in podcast form on the iTunes store.

As always Crafty was great (thank you Cathy and Tori), and we are eagerly looking forward to their Super Colossal Holiday show in December. Thanks to everyone who came out and supported us. And a huge thanks to Jolby for their ongoing support of what we do and who we are.

Mark your calendars! February 25-March 20 at Together Gallery. A fabulous tale of folk, myth and tales of the sea to be viewed, loved and wanted all for your enjoyment! Join us for a salty good time, and leave with a little more hair on your chest-tattoos free of charge! Keep your eyes open for our four foot anchor, complete with a two headed serpent. Here is the official press release, with more information on Jolby’s website.

We had pretty much forgotten about the upcoming press when Colby (of Jolby fame) dropped us a line (and photo) showing us that we actually ended up being the ONLY photo used to publicize the show. “Man that is awesome…” quickly turned to “Holy Crap, that’s crazy!”

Thank you to Portland Monthly and for its support and for thinking we were worthy to represent the craft community here in PDX. Thank you to all the other fantastic artists in this crazy, awesome town as well. We happily live in your shadows.

Hello, hello! These are some of the pieces we recently finished for the wonder-duo, Jolby! The dolls are based on the lovely illustrations of Colby Nichols and Josh Kenyon. We are so stoked to have been a  part of this awesome collaboration, Home is Where You Make It, taking place at Subtext Gallery in San Diego, CA. The show is running for the next month, so if you find yourself in sunny San Diego, drop on in and make yourself at home.

Here are some of the fabulous prints you can see at the show. On the left is Danny, the grandfather, and William on the right, grandson. There is a wonderful story behind this show, very sweet.

The final journey for Danny, as wonderfully illustrated here. Being a part of this show has been a wonderful experience. Working with Josh and Colby has been great fun, they are a great team, and fabulous artists! We hope to have more opportunities to work with them in the future, and wish them the very best on their first solo show.

Dolls for Friends was recently approached by the wonderful art/design duo, Jolby, to contribute some custom plush pieces to their upcoming gallery show, Home Is Where You Make It. The February show will be held at Subtext Gallery in San Diego during the month of February and early March 2009.

Jolby asked us if we would be interested in creating some plush versions of the characters in the show to help bring another layer of depth and texture to the event. Once we read over the backstory/premise for the show we couldn’t refuse. We were hooked:

“Jolby’s work takes us on the journey of a boy named William who, after suffering a great loss, leaves his familiar town of Seaside to discover what “home” really means inside the depths of an aging forest. Throughout this story we are introduced to a detailed world filled with odd characters, illustrious patterns, vibrant colors, and hand-rendered type.”

Who could resist being a part of that? Coupled with the fact that Colby and Josh are two very talented (just take some time to check out their work at Tangible Worldwide) and cool guys (not to mention that they get what we do) PLUS the fact that we live for the collaboration made it a must.

So there it is. We will be part of the upcoming Home is Where You Make It show in February. We will be doing updates and sneak peeks of the pieces as we progress through this wonderful project.

We were fortunate enough to be the first artists to be featured in a new series of interviews over at the wonderful Portland Craft Mafia website. We joined the PDX mafia a few months ago and have really enjoyed being members of our new craft family. The interview features some of our insights on the industry, the inside scoop on how we work and some of our likes/dislikes in the areas of food, music and magazines.

It arrived today. Wrapped in plastic. The one, the only Computer Arts Projects-all the way from jolly old England. Not just any issue, but THE Character and Toy Design Issue. The issue that features none other than….DOLLS FOR FRIENDS!!!

I am telling the truth, by the way. Some of our little guys were featured in the November issue of CAP! And it’s such a pretty magazine too. Glossy pages, fancy colors, and really cool artists-people much cooler than us! We are truly honored and blown away to have been a part of this awesome publication. It’s funny because we really stress if our sales are down, second guess our work, and are always critical of everything we make. Not that this changes anything, but it’s really nice to think that somebody likes us!

We truly love what we’re doing, you never know how things are going to turn out, and we have plenty of plush orphans lying around to prove it! But in the end if you get to make something that makes you happy, and makes someone else happy too-it doesn’t get any better.

A huge thank you to everyone that continues to support and befriend us! Especially Kate Evans at CAP for including us in such an awesome publication!

Cheers!

Erin’s take on the CAP interview can be seen on his website, webclique.net.

The catalyst driving the change is that we are being featured in the upcoming October issue of Computer Arts Projects magazine.  Being featured in CAP is something that we have wanted for a long time, so we thought we’d pull out the stops and do some remodeling. Turned out kinda nice, huh?

We were contacted the other day by the auspicious Love and a Sandwich letting us know that an article had been written on the Crammed Organisms event for Fiber Arts‘ Sept/Oct issue.  She said that some scans of the article had been posted on Flickr by another plush phenom, Moogan Creations, and that the pieces we had done for the show had been included.

We practically burned up the interbew making our way over to see the new scans, and were so not disappointed by what we saw. There on the first page were three of the five pieces we had done for the show featured ABOVE the title of the article. Our jaws literally fell off our faces and onto the floor. Getting press is always a wonderful experience, but we’ve never been placed above the title of anything before. It was a warm, fuzzy moment for sure.

So, we did what every self-respecting plush designers would do when they get some good press. We hopped on the Fiber Arts site and purchased about a million copies of their magazine. Oh yeah, it will probably be their highest selling issue ever. I just hope we have the storage room for the 58,543 boxes that are being shipped to our studios.

We generally tend to fill up our sketchbooks at a fairly rapid pace. We spend a lot of time doodling on napkins, old envelopes, in sketchbooks and generally any type of paper product that we’re be able to lay our grubby little mitts on. Yet, for the most part, the end results of our collective imaginations tend to end up in boxes, on shelves or in a variety of books scattered about our studios.

Some of the drawings are slated for future projects which may (or may not) see the light of day, but a lot of them are kept for our own enjoyment and reference. In large part this is due to not really feeling like we’ve ever had a platform to showcase many of the rough (and some are VERY rough) sketches and drawings that we are incessantly putting on paper. Enter Doodle on the Carpet.

We recently started a tumblr log called Doodle on the Carpet where we could begin to showcase some of the work we’ve accumulated (past and present). It’s primary purpose is to provide a fast, easy platform for us to post rough sketches (the rough stuff folks), doodles and completed illustrations that might not fit into some of our other spaces around the interbew.

At this point the site only contains a couple of doodles, but most great things start small, right? We have wavered back and forth on whether we want to place a commenting system in the weblog, so we’re holding off on it for right now as we want to keep this process as uncomplicated as possible at this point.

So pull up a square of carpet and join us as we do a little sharin’ Dolls for Friends style.