I did my creative project on Bessie Smith, a blues singer from the 1920s and 1930s. Bessie was bisexual, and her song lyrics often explored themes of agency and empowerment. To showcase Bessie, I decided to sew a doll of her using a pattern I found from the 1930s for historical accuracy. I cut out the pattern on cardstock and traced it onto my fabric, before sewing all around the outline and cutting it out so I could turn it right side out. The first version I made of my doll was so small that I could not turn it right side out, so I had to scrap that version and reprint the pattern 50% bigger to do everything all over again. Once I sewed the larger doll, I turned her right side out and stuffed her with a dowel before sewing up the remaining seams. I then embroidered a face for her with embroidery thread and made a yarn wig by wrapping yarn repeatedly around a book and using a crochet stitch to hold it together. I wanted to make a recreation of one of the dresses I'd seen in photos of Bessie Smith, but most of the outfits were either made out of fabrics that were challenging to sew or that had complicated seams, so I opted to make more of a traditional 1920s dress instead. I think making a child-friendly doll of an LGBT+ figure will help to show that being queer, and especially being bisexual, isn't inherently a sexual or inappropriate thing. Since I never had an opportunity to learn about Bessie Smith in school, a doll could be a good interactive way to teach others about her. 
I really like your idea of sewing a doll of Bessie. I also like how you made it more child-friendly and appropriate which is important because a lot of times LGBT+ figures are portrayed as inherently a sexual or inappropriate in some cases.
ReplyDeleteYour doll is really cool and I like the pictures showing your process and kind of how it evolved. It does seem like a good way of representing queer people as child friendly too.
ReplyDeleteI really like the idea of making LGBTQ+ figures more accessible to kids through dolls. I think when we talk about queer representation we often talk about it in the context of film and TV that is for an older audience, but I think it is really important to make sure there is queer representation and education for kids. I think making dolls of queer figures or characters is a really good way of doing that.
ReplyDeleteI love this. There is a stereotype that bisexual people are "overly sexual", which was a common way of thinking during this time. By making this doll child-friendly, it is helping end the stereotype and biphobia. I also love how you showed pictures of the entire process.
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