Barb Kobe
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The Healing Doll Way

9/25/2018

1 Comment

 
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There is lots to learn about self publishing. In my case, I ordered and paid for my books and keep them stored in a storage unit. I have also created a shipping station in my home. During August and September I have learned how to prepare books for shipping, use www.stamps.com to send, and keep records of sales. I've sent out about 150 books. Thank you to all who purchased. My book is on Amazon as well. Sales there were even more robust. A big thank you to my publisher Beavers Pond Press in Bloomington, Minnesota for fulfilling orders.

You can order a signed copy from me in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I charge the same $29.95 + plus shipping + state tax for Minnesota, North Dakota, and Michigan.  Shipping is available outside of US. The shipping and handling is dependent upon where you live in the world. Contact me to discuss shipping costs at 
bkobe@healingdollway.com  Please note you can still write a review even if you did not purchase from Amazon; I hope you will consider this.

To place an order go to www.healingdollway.com and go to the STORE.

Check out the reviews at www.healingdollway.com. Be sure and read the long version of art therapist Lani Gerity's foreword and the paper dolls she created.

If you have any questions about ordering your copy or multiple copies please email me at bkobe@healingdollway.com.

1 Comment

The Healing Doll Way

8/12/2018

0 Comments

 
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​There is lots to learn about self publishing. In my case, I ordered and paid for my books and keep them stored in a storage unit. I have also created a shipping station in my home. During August and September I have learned how to prepare books for shipping, use www.stamps.com to send, and keep records of sales. I've sent out about 150 books. Thank you to all who purchased. My book is on Amazon as well. Sales there were even more robust. A big thank you to my publisher Beavers Pond Press in Bloomington, Minnesota for fulfilling orders.

You can order a signed copy from me in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I charge the same $29.95 + plus shipping + state tax for Minnesota, North Dakota, and Michigan.  Shipping is available outside of US. The shipping and handling is dependent upon where you live in the world. Contact me to discuss shipping costs at 
bkobe@healingdollway.com

To place an order go to www.healingdollway.com and go to STORE.

Check out the reviews at www.healingdollway.com. Be sure and read the long version of art therapist Lani Gerity's foreword and the paper dolls she created.

If you have any questions about ordering your copy or multiple copies please email me at bkobe@healingdollway.com.

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Book has New Title

12/17/2017

1 Comment

 
My book The Transformative Art of Healing Dolls has a new name
​The Healing Doll Way, subtitle to come
Hear is a small selection from the Guardian section.

The Guardian
Purpose: Defender, Protector, Keeper
This doll represents a witness who supports you through this
process. It will reflect protection, guidance, hope, possibility, and encouragement. The Guardian will be a symbol of permission to do the work that follows. She will contain positive input and
encouragement as you travel on this creative journey. Once she is completed, put her where you will be creating the other dolls, as she will be a reminder that you are moving through a healing
process. Always keep her present.
Your Guardian holds all your inner healing tools:
Your ability to love unconditionally.
Your ability to support, cherish, listen, and understand.
Your ability to forgive, be kind, be joyful, and be playful.

Read more and get a peek at the design by clicking on the file below.


guardian__facebook.pdf
File Size: 973 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File

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Status of My Book

11/20/2017

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Status of my book The Transformative Art of Healing Dolls.

I am done writing, book is in the hands of graphic designer and editor right now.
​
I have spoken to a rep from Amazon CreateSpace and she said Amazon is really busy with books coming in so may not be published by end of the year. Once I send them the PDF of the book it will take anywhere from 14 to 30 days before it's available for purchase.

Trust me, I want it done just as much as you do. I will let you know. In the meantime I will start sharing stories and pictures from the book.

Gratitude Shrine Doll
Embellished fabric created on a foamcore base. Ultra Suede face and hands.
What image of gratitude would you put in her belly?

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Making Healing Dolls for Others

8/17/2017

2 Comments

 
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While I teach creating healing and transform-ative dollmaking for yourself, there are instances when you might be drawn to make a healing doll for someone you care for or love.
​This article from the Internal Medicine Quarterly Newsletter at Hartford Hospital in Hartford, Connecticut (written by Karen Miller) does a fine job of discussing the subject of making dolls for other than yourself.
​
  • After learning that a friend who lives several states away was diagnosed with breast cancer,
  • Pam felt helpless and worried.
  • Rob had an unsettling miscommunication with her sister, and felt terrible about the silence between them. 
  • When Cindy found out that her lifelong best friend had cancer, she did not know what
    to say to her, or how to talk about her illness, so she distanced herself.
  • A group of women watched helplessly as a dear friend suffered through depression after enduring many losses in her life.
  • * Tina was heartsick when she discovered her artist friend had developed MS.

When something as “big” as cancer invades the life of a loved one, or when we find ourselves separated from people we love for any reason, the patient isn’t alone in needing healing. Suddenly the world has shifted, often in unfamiliar ways. Everyone who loves the person who is hurting can be thrown off balance. What should we do? Go for a visit? Take dinner? Send flowers? Make phone calls? Stay away?

It is common in our culture to turn to problem-solving when confronting another’s pain, but this approach can lead to unsatisfactory and uninspired solutions. “Figuring things out” doesn’t always work very well when facing something outside of our usual experience. However, if we can tap into creativity and intuition, amazing answers can appear to deep and searching questions.

Many people fear that they are not creative, and that “art” is a gift reserved for a select few. But what if creativity is natural to everyone, and that it shows up fairly easily when we have a strong desire to reach out to someone. What if a person’s feelings to give birth to creative skills? We are never more inspired to make something happen than when someone we love is hurting. The truth is that everyone can tap into a deep well of creativity and inspiration, and that is something that many people have discovered through the experience of dollmaking.

In each case, the women either made a doll herself, or inspired the making of a doll. The dollmaking materials came together to express the essential beauty of the person to receive the doll, and grew out of loving feelings and intentions. The dollmaking process began with focus on the beautiful qualities and happy memories and intimate connections with each person, and then led to meditative reflection on these marvelous attributes, followed by the doll emerging almost magically. Each doll found unique expression, and came into being as a reflection of someone’s glorious spirit.


The dollmaking isn’t about curing illness or lifting depression. It is about connecting loved ones in a way that illustrates how 1+1 can be immensely more than 2.
​
First the friend finders her loving feelings, then expresses them creatively, then presents the expression to the other and touches something deep and eternal there.  The person who receives the doll suddenly knows how much she is loved in a way that a greeting card or plant or phone call can’t quite convey. She is deeply moved, the giver feels tremendous for being able to express her feelings so eloquently, and for a moment something healing happens.  Healing isn’t just for the patient. The friend has found a way to transform her sense of helplessness and compassion into something meaningful and profound.
  • Pam brought a circle of friends together to inspire a healing doll for their best friend across the country. Love poured out of them and into the doll through the dollmaker. The friend with breast cancer was overwhelmed and amazed – she had no idea how much she was loved and how deeply she had impacted so many people.

  • Robin made a doll for her sister and when she presented it, they cried and hugged, and realized how their love for each other transcended any disappointment.

  • With great courage, Cindy brought her handmade doll to the friend with breast cancer and they held each other and talked about their fears and overcame the great distance that had hurt them more than any illness.

  • The large circle of women who wanted to help their heartsick friend had a special doll created to represent their love and appreciation, and expressed their love in pages and pages of words to her. One month later, the dear friend died unexpectedly, and her friends felt grateful that they had been able to express their love for her before she died.

  • Tina made a doll for her friend with MS and went to all their mutual friends to have each person write a special message in a little book. The friend was overwhelmed and felt special and loved.
  • Is there someone in your life with a physical ailment? Emotional trauma? Spiritual crisis? It is possible to create a very special expression of your love in the form of a doll. Your feelings can inspire your internal artist. Write about your love for the person, pick up some bits and pieces of ribbon and bark/sticks and whatnot, pull it together playfully and watch as the doll comes to life.
  • The love is what heals. The doll simply expresses the love in a unique and powerful way.

    Doll Artist: Barb Kobe  La Estrella
    SOURCE: Complements, Internal Medicine Quarterly News  Volume 2, Issue 2, June 2  
    ​Integrative Medicine Hartford Hospital, Hartford, Connecticut
2 Comments

Digesting My Life

5/10/2017

1 Comment

 
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How can dollmaking help us to know our inner healer? I learned along time ago that the dolls I made were speaking to me, or were the voice of my bodymind. This showed up when the left hip jutted out in a doll right before having my left hip replaced....and I've seen this same thing happen with two other dollmakers.

The symbols you are drawn to put on your doll often relate to your body and areas that are bound up asking to be released. One student in a class was struggling with wrapping a large, 3 foot stick doll. She kept wrapping and the more she wrapped the more frustrated she felt. Once I encouraged her to unwrap the entire thing did she realize that her body did not want to be bound up it wanted to be unbound and released from her bindings....and after she unwrapped the doll she got what that was all about. So often the symbols or the actual process of making the doll don't speak to us or make sense until later on.
​
When I made a doll to heal my digestive tract I spent time studying the digestive process and learning the shapes of the organs and internal body parts involved and then put those symbols on the doll. This was as if I was saying to my body teach me about you and talk to me as I make art to symbolize you.

Do you have a story about how a doll you made was healing for you?

How can you play with the idea of allowing your body to speak to you through your dolls?

I believe that making these kinds of dolls can be healing and transformative....and sometimes I forget and then I make one..and remember.

1 Comment

Subtle Action Feeling Dolls

11/26/2016

2 Comments

 

Gaia Contemplating Her Earth Self


When I make healing dolls I create a container for my feelings. When I make a doll that express emotion I am being in-relationship WITH my feelings,  my self and all my relations on the planet that are experiencing these feelings.

​Why make healing dolls such as these? 

1. To release the feeling from my bodymind.
 

2. To take a stand about something happening in the world that affects me deeply.

I have recently discovered the term Subtle Acti
vism?
Subtle Activism is an activity of consciousness or spirit, such as prayer, meditation, or ecstatic dance, or art intended to support collective healing and social change. Subtle Activism grows from the idea that there are many effective ways – some newly emerging, many as old as humanity – to positively influence social change other than overt political action. 

My dolls are my way of taking subtle action and be a creative activist. You can read more about it here http://gaiafield.net/what-is-subtle-activism/
2 Comments

Does a Healing Doll Need a Face?

6/7/2016

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I recently hosted a doll making class in my studio for six members of The National League of American Pen Women, www.nlapw.org. One of the those attending was Linda Davis, Minneapolis, MN, and she brought her doll Diosa de los Cinco Sentidos. This doll is the second of Linda's doll creations. Once I saw her I knew I needed to know the doll's story. Here is Linda's description.
The body of the doll was purposely divided into three different patterns of black and white. It represents neither black nor white but a blending. The two-color palette and the three-pattern change represent a shift in our way of thinking. Her hair is a mixture of colorful yarns, string, lace, whatever I had collected. It represents the wildness and abandon that is possible when we leave race behind. It also demonstrates texture.

The facial features were intentionally left off. My goal was for the viewers to put their face onto the doll, to examine what it means personally. Her body breaks the myth of the skinny perfect body syndrome. I used wire and paper clay to develop her arms/hands. The red beads (i.e., her shoes) represent Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz 
— to remind us that we always have the power within us. Around her neck she is adorned with beads and a medicine pouch that represents healing. Off her arm is her very own lyrica, the instrument that plays a sweet seductive melody. A basket of flowers and freshly baked loaf of bread lay nearby.

The number one question that people ask me about my dolls is, "Where did you get that face?" My dolls have threads of emotions running through them and so it makes sense to me that the face is expressing a feeling, as well as the body posture, even the colors that I use to decorate and costume her.


I did some research about dolls with no faces.

Most Amish rag dolls do not have faces and a few reasons why.
  • Equality. If a doll has no face, it is free of identity and reinforces the notion of equality in the human race.
  • Biblical. The Amish interpret the Biblical law, create no graven images or idols or accurate representations of human form, as to mean no facial features or human likeness.
  • Vanity.  Amish believe that creating a doll or toy with a human image creates an ideal image of the human form and could encourage children to model themselves after this image. Therefore faceless dolls are an affirmation of Amish modesty. (Hmm, makes me wonder what would happen to the Barbie Doll image and market if she didn't have a face, but that's a subject for another blog). 
The Native American tribe, Haudenosaunee, tell a story about a Legend of the No Face Doll a Corn Husk doll, with a face, who was told that she was beautiful in every village she visited. She would look into a pool of water to admire herself. The Great Spirit talked to her and told her that if she kept thinking that she was better than everyone else a terrible punishment would come upon her, but he wouldn’t tell her what it would be. She kept looking in pools of water and eventually The Great Spirit took her face away. Since that time, the Haudenosaunee people do not put a face on their corn husk dolls. This is to remind people, never to think that they are better than anyone else or a great punishment will fall upon them.

There was several more dolls mentioned in my research: Waldorf Dolls, Dominican Republic faceless dolls and Islamic dolls. There's not much about these dolls and if you are interested I am sure you would find the same website I did. It Seem to me that the dolls without faces, either found in the past or present, have a specific purpose, to be used as a plaything and model that helps the adults to socialize and shape the children into the beliefs and behaviors of specific culture.

Linda's doll invites
 you to put your face onto the doll and then to examine what it means for you.
I would love to hear what this doll might mean for you.

Find out more about Linda Davis here

​


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A Holding Pattern Doll

4/22/2016

1 Comment

 
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Making Healing Dolls take time, attention and releasing expectations. Here's one of my healing
doll stories.

Making healing dolls includes setting intention, understanding that the artmaking is a process, and devoting some time to the making......and being with yourself and noticing what shows up along the way.
This Holding Pattern doll was made using a technique called The Puzzle Form by dollmaker Susanna Oroyan (Anatomy of a Doll) From her book:

"Sometimes we have an idea which is conceived from a drawing or as an impression of form or posture. This sort of idea usually does not require movement of the form, although the pose strong suggests movement. One way to achieve this effect without the use of joints or armature is to create the form from a stacked set of firmly stuffed parts. To do this you need to sketch your intended shape, then break it down into component parts. Each part becomes a pattern piece for a sewn and stuffed shape." 
S. Oroyan

I set intention to spend two days doing only three things...well eating as well....creating, gardening and sleeping. Doll came from the journaling I did the first day. She is Holding Pattern. From the journal:
​
What can be stopping you from living your life
What is wiggling and nudging and pushing and reaching for
You restrict the stopping, it puts you in a holding pattern.
A holding your breath because you fear this place.
What does this look like.
After drawing the image, this..
I want you
You can not have
because you don't have
I ask for what I want
I beg, I plead
Please let me have
I won't give, I want to do me
there is no room for my wants
and your wants in my life.
I bundle my wants up and
hold them tight so I don't
forget them and
my wants restrict me and won't 
allow what's next.
At the end of the 2nd day I felt so relaxed, peaceful.....ahhhh, creative bliss. Highly recommend!
​
Fabric body, face made of Crayola Model Magic.
You can find instructions for how to make a puzzle piece doll in Anatomy of a Doll by Susanna Oroyan
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Lessons from the Book

11/24/2015

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Sharing from my forthcoming book

PictureHolding Energy for What's Next
Doll shown was created by Barb Kobe

As I am working on the final pieces of my book The Transformative Art of Healing Dolls I thought I would share pieces of inspiration from the Medicine Doll online classes that may or may not be in the book.  Here's a discussion about metaphor:

Hi E,
I hope you will share more of your story in the group about how you broke things down into smaller pieces in order to understand the whole.
 
K's response to you was helpful for me..."Sometimes it just makes so much sense to break things into its components and take it one step at a time. No rush. No worry." 
 
There is so much to learn about our bodies, emotions, minds. I am notice how a re-education about food and exercise and the effects to our bodies is starting to show up on the media....I remember working in the computer lab at the high school and watching the health teacher and her her class as they were assigned to interact with health programs about the body.  Most were quiet and deeply involved.  There is so much to learn and I feel as if I am playing catch you after being raised in a system that taught me to treat doctors as the one's with all the answers and trust them before I trust myself. 
 
I am drawn to experts in the fields of alternative medicine like Donna Eden, Lissa Rankin, Christine Northrup, and so many more. Most saying we are more than our bodies, and yet we live in these bodies and our bodies present with a language that comes through the body. When it comes to making healing dolls there's a part of the process that includes learning about the scientific studies that tell us about the part of ourselves that we are focusing our healing energies upon.
 
Yesterday I listened to a presentation by an artist who had received a Mn State Arts Grant to partner with her son and daughter-in-law, both Ph.D's studying different areas in the field of environment and evolution from a Darwinian perspective.  Carolyn, the artist, talked about how they worked together.  Her son and his wife, gave her a copy of a book that was Darwin's journals, which included drawings and mapping and very abstract notes and thoughts all put together. Carolyn loved the book and would engage in conversation with her partners about different terms used in their studies. She would listen to the words and turn them into metaphors for a life process. One small example is

Gradualism  -  The Darwinian belief that evolution takes place in innumerable small steps. She connected this to the creative process and as Kathryn so apply stated...."take it one step at a time." Her art was knitted and crocheted with things she found from nature ---  pods, vines, sticks, etc.
So what is my point.
 I think we have an added advantage being dollmakers. We can take words that describe a symptom, research the details about the system and turn it into a metaphor.
...and then using our creative toolbox engage with this knowledge through art making that mirrors back to us a new relationship we can have with our bodies. ...and when done we share the story of our lessons and learning that encourages our group to made new connections for themselves, explore deeper and make their own metaphors and images.  All so creatively scientific......

​Barb Kobe

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What People say,

“Barb is a creative genius who goes out of her way to produce innovative, quality products. I cannot say enough for her skills and her work ethic! Her skills have helped countless people around the world.”   Kelly Guinan

“Barb is a fabulous teacher who loves to share her many years of experience making whimsical and soulful “dolls”. Her doll sculpting process is a form of creative expression that engages the psyche and brings healing and insight.”   Val Olson, Minneapolis

“She is not only unique, but compassionate, funny and knows exactly how to make learning about yourself a fun experience!”


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  • Home
  • About
    • Artist Statement
    • Bio & Resume
    • Training
  • Dolls
    • Why Make Dolls
    • Healing & Transformative Dolls
    • Galleries >
      • Gallery - Most Recent
      • Gallery before 2015
      • Visual Journaling
      • Paper Dolls
    • Finding Pomegranate
    • The Calling
    • Tamara Doll Story
    • Feeling Dolls
  • CLASSES
    • Online Classes >
      • Class Description
      • What Students Say
    • In Person Classes
    • Schedule
    • Resources >
      • Bibliography
      • Supplies
      • Articles
      • Artists
      • Books & Magazines
      • Creative Healing Theories
      • Creativity Resources
      • Faces
      • Healing Doll Artists
      • Paper Doll Resources
      • Patterns
    • Healing Dolls 2016 online
    • 2017 Healing Dolls online
    • Healing Doll Way 2018
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  • MEDIA