Intuition Dolls Come to the Bedlam Farm Open House

I put out a call for Intuition Dolls once, but  didn’t get much of a response.    Since I had made my own Intuition Doll I asked other people to make a doll of their own and bring her/him to the Bedlam Farm Open House.  I wrote that I would hang them on the Barn all together.

Then a few weeks before the Open House, Jean emailed me and asked if I still wanted the dolls.  She had something in mind, but wasn’t going to make her if I didn’t want them anymore.  Since I didn’t hear from a lot of people, I was ready to give up on the idea, and, for her own reasons,  it seemed Jean was  too.  But when I got her email I was inspired all over again.  Her enthusiasm was infectious and I wasn’t about to be the one to squash a creative impulse.

Yes, I wrote her back, bring your doll.  I’ll write about it again on my blog and even if it’s just the two of us, we’ll hang our Intuition Dolls on the barn for all to see.   So I blogged about it two more times, putting the call out for Intuition Dolls.  I don’t know what your doll looks like, I wrote,  she can be made out of anything and might be a poem or a painting or something I never would have imagined.

A week before the Open House, a few arrived in the mail, one (actually it was three dolls made out of worn socks)  came just in time, the day before, “Open for Open House” was written on the box.   The rest came during the weekend.   I hung them on the barn, a varied mix of materials and styles.  I wasn’t organized enough to give them name tags or  take individual pictures of them, but they were seen by hundreds of people.

Then, towards the end of the day on Sunday, Susan asked me if any of the dolls were for sale.  There was one she said that really spoke to her.  It was a framed beaded necklace with a poem.  So I found Claudia, who had made it and introduced her to Susan.  They both had the same price in mind, it was an easy transaction.

This is mostly how the whole weekend went.  It was made up of little stories like this of people finding the art or the other people or animals that had meaning for them.  Making those connections, finding words for their feelings and feeling safe enough to open their hearts to each other.