In my other life, when not hurtling through novel manuscripts or chasing around after babies, I sell dolls. The Deepings Dolls, in their hundreds of variations of time period, character and costume detail, have been part of my life for more than two decades. My mother Jilli started painting for them when I was little, and she was putting herself through Art School. She continued to paint in the evenings even once I was a teenager and she was back working full time.

When Raeli was a toddler, the Deepings Woodturner decided to retire his business, including the unique and iconic dolls that he had devised. Over 17 artists had worked for the Deepings over the years, but my mother had been with them by far the longest. Rather than see the dolls disappear, he asked if she would be interested in taking it over. Given that I was at home with my daughter, and was coming to an end (ha!) of my academic life, my mother proposed that we go in on it together. She could continue as an artist, and I could manage the office, taking orders and shipping dolls to private customers as well as various galleries. It would be a way for me to earn a part time income during my stay-at-home-mum years, and it would mean continuing work for herself, the other painters and woodturners.

A few things have changed in the last three years. My Mum has retired from her office job, and now gets to paint during the day (heh when not gardening like it’s her job) and actually chill out in the evenings. We took on the mammoth task of cataloguing the dolls, and developed the range into areas we had always been keen on, such as literary and historical characters. We’re particularly proud of the Jane Austen range, and the Australiana set that just keeps getting bigger.

While many of the old customers miss the old Deepings studio, which was built into a hillside on Nichols Rivulet and was a go-to tourist destination (I get several dozen phone calls or emails a year from people inquiring about it – yes, I miss it too, but all I have is a house in the suburbs, guys, you can’t come visit me!), I like to think we’ve done our bit in bringing this little piece of nostalgia kicking and screaming into the 20th century.

I’m giving up on the Ebay store, as the fees are just getting harder and harder to justify – they’re just not as friendly to storefront businesses as they used to be. I’m sticking with Etsy as a way for people to access specific dolls – the general business model is that people pick a doll type from our catalogue and it gets painted afresh for them if we don’t have one on the shelf. Each doll is completely different in details, no two alike, which is mostly a feature rather than a flaw to customers, though I can’t blame them for also wanting an option to say ‘that one there.’ Anyway, I like the Etsy shop. I tend to get a little distracted making up stories for the dolls that live there, mostly to entertain myself…

I’m still trying to catch up and compensate for neglecting the dolls over NaNoWriMo. I’ve just uploaded prototypes for a new doll up at Etsy and blogged about it over on the Pendlerook blog – the Pendlerook Darning Fairy which doubles as a darning mushroom! I have no idea if it will catch on, but I’m hoping it will appeal to knitters. All knitters are crazy, right?

Tags: deepings dolls