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Hospitals aren’t exactly the first place most of us think of when it comes to our creative inspirations. But for Anna Branford, the restless hours spent in hospital waiting for a diagnosis resulted in her making her first doll. Countless dolls later, she recalls that otherwise traumatic period as “an extraordinary blessing in disguise”.
“The wait was quite long and it was a very anxious time,” Anna tells Living Creatively. “One night I realised, about midnight, that I wasn’t going to get any sleep, so I might as well get up and do something, and for some reason I thought I might try to make a doll out of an old linen curtain I had lying around. I sat up listening to Kate Rusby and hand stitching until the sun came up. Then I slept a bit on the couch and when I woke up, there was this little doll on my coffee table and somehow I was feeling better about everything, even though nothing about my situation had really changed. From then on I used all the hours I was spending in hospital waiting rooms sewing, and instead of feeling nervous and impatient, I was much more relaxed and focused.”
Luckily, the diagnosis was relatively benign but Anna has been making dolls ever since, under the name Arabella Cucumber. You might remember her wonderful Frida Kahlo doll, which won our Celebrity Softies competition a few months ago. Incredibly, that doll was Anna’s “first real try at a softie” – which goes to show what you can achieve if you have a go!
“She was made from mostly recycled fabrics, as all my dolls are, including bits and pieces cut from pre-loved and freshly laundered clothing,” says Anna. “It was a big challenge to think of a celebrity who I actually wanted to look at and think about for the time it would take to create a doll. But I think Frida Kahlo is beautiful and interesting enough to inspire people, especially women, for evermore.”
Well she certainly inspired Anna. An inherently creative soul to begin with, Anna “was always making things as a child,” but never dolls [until the aforementioned hospital stay]. “One of the stories in my family mythos is that I was given a Barbie for my birthday and I asked if they could take it back and get me a stapler! I loved making things and for as long as I can remember I’ve been unable to resist collecting things like beads and sequins. My pockets are always full of bits and pieces I find while I’m out walking, and so is every little box and jar in my flat.” |
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With no formal training, Anna has managed to turn her creative hobby into “a pastime that helps create a balance with all the other more hectic things” she does, as well as into a bit of extra pocket money when her dolls are sold via a few independent retail outlets: Northcote’s Small Dreams, North Carlton’s Fairground Child and Thornbury’s Pippa May Cook, where, to Anna’s great delight, the owner gives the dolls foodie names, like Florentine and Cinnamon.
She’s also developed enough word of mouth that she regularly gets asked to custom-make dolls “in the likeness of a particular person”, which she has a ball doing. “I also donate pregnant dolls to a small international group called the Uterus Brigade, who eBay items to raise money for women who are having difficulty accessing IVF for financial reasons. It’s a wonderful cause and I’d love to see other crafters entering into it as it grows.”
Anna’s doll making ‘hobby’ fits in quite naturally with her professional life as a childcare worker and PhD student [she’s just completed her sociology thesis on children and fantasy, and when Living Creatively spoke to her, she was still nervously waiting to see if she’d passed or not]. Both roles provide her with plenty of “helpful feedback and wonderful, creative ideas” for her dolls. In addition, Anna runs the Sunday school at her church. “So I’m always going from one place to the next and I actually get a lot of my sewing done on public transport and waiting at tram stops!”
Anna’s public sewing exploits might also be explained by the inspiration she derives simply from living in Melbourne. “I think Melbourne is a very easy place to feel inspired,” she says. “There are lots of people with interesting ideas here and lots of places for those ideas to be expressed, like art markets and craft markets and shopfront galleries and fabulous shops that showcase work by local designers. It isn’t difficult to feel creative here.”
Adhering to the philosophy that “sewing, especially hand stitching, can be almost like a meditation,” Anna is a “great believer in the Shaker maxim ‘hands to work and hearts to God’. Whether you’re religious or not, I think busy hands create time to reflect on important and peaceful things.” That, or an almond croissant with Earl Grey Tea, first thing in the morning: “my idea of heaven,” she says. We could all learn a lot from such an inspiring woman.
By Melanie Sheridan
See more of Anna’s dolls at arabellacucumber.blogspot.com |
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