Passion for Art

If you have read my last blog I wrote on how and why I create art dolls, this is the continuation, forgive me if I go all over the place with this, I am going to write whatever comes to  mind.
I don't know much about Voodoo, and that is why I say my Spirit Art Dolls are not related to that religion. Mainly what I know is this, Voodoo's name is attributed to a West African ancestral religious system of worship and ritual practices, where deities are born and honored, along with the veneration of ancient and recent ancestors. Here are two sites,  if you have time to read about it a bit, I found them interesting.

http://www.mamiwata.com/

http://www.swagga.com/voodoo.htm

I believe intention is the important thing in any action,  I have seen other artists work  on art dolls who lovingly design their images  to activate/promote wellness in the body, these pillow like little dolls are sold with pins...!  How could  this be "wrong" ?   To me it makes sense, we have key/pressure points in our body, the main ones called chakras ("wheels") the nexus of energy residing in the body)

It takes imagination and intuition to promote spirit art dolls out there in the modern world, people react to the description, in a positive or negative manner.  (My mother says I don't sell the doll itself but the "bs" I write along the way...(?)...perhaps, but people would not resonate with my work if they were not already in this path.  Most of my little critters are not pretty, they are not elegant, they are not powerful in and of themselves.  They are symbols and messangers of good will. 

This theme is as old of the world and every culture has its "fetish dolls", do you remember those tiny "worry dolls"? they come inside a small box and you take them in your hand and give them your worries before you can go to sleep.  The Native Americans have the Dream Catcher and so on.

The only reason I tell people mine are not Voodoo dolls, is because the question is handed to me as a negative.  I think it is pure ignorance at work.  From time to time I get an unusual request, but nobody has ever asked me to make them a Voodoo doll to attract or harm...I have made dolls to increase intuition, inspiration and creativity as well as abundance and porsperity.  I just sent out a doll which intention was to let go and start new...that is my favorite theme.
I made a doll for a man in the SF BAy, he contacted me because he had seen my Virgen of Guadalupe art dolls in eBAy, he wanted me to create a little doll that would remind him of an Orisha Spirit called Oya,  I did research on it and decided I could make him the doll, In Yoruba mythology, Oya, is the Goddess of the Niger River. She is seen in aspects of warrior-goddess of wind, lighening, feritily, fire and magic. She creates hurricanes and tornadoes and guards the underworld.  
She turned out exactly as he expected. I was happy for him, and I never imagined my doll would be used  to start a tornado...!!  ohhh dear, how fun is that!!