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Stories
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I’ve decided to share with you the stories that have to do with the making of some of my Teddy Bears.
Below are some of the stories:
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"Kaffie"
I came up with the name using a derivative of the Russian word kafel (tiles).
I saw the image of that teddy bear while staring at my bathroom tiles one day. Fuzzy contours, indistinct lines… in the midst of it I noticed a sad and despondent Teddy Bear, a shabby fellow who looked as though he had been wounded, one eye puffed up and one ear drooped. A drawing of the bear was kept in my album for nearly one year, but I had no time to elaborate on it. It took a year to brush all my worries and to-dos aside and focus on my pet project. Several poorly made dummies made me follow a different path. First, I sculptured a putty replica based on my sketch. Then I attached the dummy cloth to the sculptured figure with safety pins and outlined the estimated pattern line, tracing the drawing from the cloth to the paper afterwards. I had to do four dummies more – with all the adjustments and alignments – before I succeeded in getting a much-sought result. I had been searching and changing the “antique” mohair for sewing this Teddy. But I did not intend to make a teddy in the traditional “antique” style. I was much more interested in mixing the styles and searching out for something new. Hopefully, I managed to make a go of it. “Fantasy Antique” was the name of a style I invented for making my Kaffie . No, it is not a shabby, artificially aged Teddy Bear, resembling some old toy from a grandmother’s chest – nay – it is the IMAGE of a sad, “weary of living alone” and brokenhearted creature… Nobody seems to have appreciated my new teddy at the “Moscow Fair 2008”, where I first exhibited it – the public had got used to a different kind of my teddies made thus far. And this one was totally different from anything I had ever made before. However, on the last day of the show two visitors came up to my stand and bought all three of my Kaffy Teddies. And I am really happy that there were the few ones who dug that Teddy Bear the way I did.
I love all of my works, but Kaffie is the only one of all my teddies I’ve made in six years that I would like to keep in my house.
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«Shpakl»
The name was derived from the Russian word “shpakliovka” (joint filler)
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This Teddy was born in 2006. At the time I was busy putting things together for my first personal exhibition. In the course of the preparation I fell seriously ill and spent some time in hospital. My biggest worry was that I would not manage to get ready for the exhibition, as its date had been already set. Thus, my doctors allotted a separate hospital ward for me and allowed me to sew the Teddies there. I got well faster than my doctors thought I would because I kept on working. My head was one hundred per cent full of work. I could not care less for my disease. When I felt better, I started leaving hospital for a couple of hours to get the materials for my work from home. One day I was on my way back to hospital carrying a bagful of materials. Suddenly something made me stop right in the doorway of the hospital. It felt as if I had heard the will of heaven. I looked up at the wall of the building – I couldn’t understand why. All of a sudden I grasped the shape of my next Teddy Bear appearing on the hospital wall, which was covered with joint filler stains and cracked by the frost and moisture. I do remember the clear contours of the image. I sketched it immediately in my pad that I always carry around. Back in my ward I had to finish off the manufacture of a teddy I had been working prior to my last outing. But I could not help thinking about the figure I saw on the hospital wall. I gave up my previous work and got down to “Shpakl” pattern. I made the teddy really quick just the way it looked to me amidst the joint filler stains on the wall. The new Teddy was put on display at my personal exhibition, which marked my complete recovery. Some people simply failed to appreciate my new work when looking at the picture of the Teddy on the web site. But they felt like buying the Teddy when they saw it “in the flesh” at the exhibition. The exhibition copy was, alas, the only one available, and had been already sold to a private collection. That was the time when I got the orders for “Shpakl” Teddy. Now you can see several versions of this Teddy, made of different materials.
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The LOVE Theme
In 2008 I submitted an application for the participation in the Golden George competition held in Germany. My idea was to make 3 works for three nominations. The first two took me more than a month of tedious work. It took great effort to get the job done. I felt pretty much exhausted. Then I got reunited with my old boyfriend, the one I hadn’t seen for half a year. Our romance was heating up again. I was in high spirits, hoping that our relationship would work fine that time and we were meant for each other. At the beginning the ideas about my entry for the third nomination were absolutely different from those I finally came up with. No doubt about it, I was moved by love and affection when a concept dawned on me – it would be a pair of Teddies riding a bike on their honeymoon trip. Knocking my ideas into shape didn’t seem that difficult to me, frankly speaking, I was making it while overwhelmed by infatuation. I didn’t think much about the competition. I thought my Teddy Bear girl would put on a wedding dress and a wedding veil. I was also going to attach some empty cans to the bike so it could rattle up the road. No sooner had I finished the wedding attire for the girl than it became crystal-clear to me: the outfit didn’t look right. In other words, the girl didn’t feel like being a fiancée. Somebody up above seemed to be telling me to have another thought, as if He was trying to warn me: “It’s not the right time to get married!” But the love I felt at the time was so strong that I ended up with a love theme anyway, so I called my work “Love”. “Love –here and now! Don’t think about the future! No plans! Enjoy your love – here and now!” My heart was full of love and happiness when I started working on the project. My eyes had brimmed with tears by the time I was about to put the finishing touches to my teddies. My boyfriend left me as quick as he reappeared in my life. He had been gone before my work was complete. I spent hours crying my heart out though I kept repeating my mantra over and over again: “I’m just out of luck. But I’m sure: LOVE is still alive in this wretched world so may some other people be happy!” Those Teddies became a symbol of my Faith in Love, the most beautiful feeling ever found on the life’s palette.
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«Terry Puppy»
Terry was born when my Dikki Studio was up and running. At that time I worked for a shop selling designer Teddies. Once the shop manager called me up and told me a story. A woman customer saw some designer toys in the shop and asked whether it was possible to place an order for a teddy dog, to be made after the photo of her pet dog i.e. a terrier. On the face of it, there was nothing special in the order. But it turned out that the dog had recently died so the lady wanted an artist to make a furry copy of her deceased pet using its picture. But that was not the whole story. One of the conditions was that an artist should use the dog’s wool combed out by the owner over the years. I’d never had such a quirky order before. Moreover, I’d never tried my hand at stuffed toy dogs. The task seemed interesting for me – so I agreed. I had second thoughts when I saw the wool of the deceased terrier. But it was too late to back out of the deal. The wool was dirty, with plenty of dead fleas among the locks. My first mission was to clean it off. It was a tough job. I had to wash the wool and dry it up for several times. Then I combed it out again before disinfecting. At long last I got down to making a pattern. I decided to stuff the clean wool inside the toy’s body after putting some lavender to repel moths. Naturally, my first experience of the kind could not be compared with that of skilled artists, but at the moment I was sure I would handle the job. The customer was happy though she specifically required that no pictures of that work be made available for public display because she didn’t want to share any pictures of her late pet with anybody else. A toy puppy seen on this photograph is the one I made later to the original pattern. I made it from a different kind of fur. Only certified professional materials, which are normally sold at exhibitions, were used for the manufacture of my later versions of the toy.
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«Sort of a Hedgehog»
I made this Teddy when I was getting ready for my personal exhibition in 2006. I heard a song on the radio while finishing off yet another Teddy. I found that song pretty funny and encouraging. In other words, the song inspired me to conjure up a vision of my new creation. Its image was talking shape in my head. I went to bed feeling quite satisfied with my brand-new Teddy I’d finished. But I couldn’t fall asleep for a long time. In my mind’s eye I could see a clearer image of the Teddy inspired by the song. I drew inspiration for my new concept Teddy from the lyrics, which were both funny ironic. It is a Teddy Bear with a smirk on his lips but a very kind look in his eyes. He wears a Russian padded jacket and ushanka or a hat with ear flaps made of wool. In lieu of a dog he holds a hedgehog by a leash; the hedgehog is looking a bit apprehensively at his master. Some may find the idea rather gross. But it is just a toy! The idea really got to me. I couldn’t sleep a wink that night. I got up and made the first drawing of the Teddy. Right after that I started working on my new project. I spent a sleepless night making a patter. It was all I could manage till dawn. Then I hit the pillow and soon was fast asleep. I was completely caught up in my work on the following day. By a curious coincidence the same song was playing over and over again on the radio. I was putting parts of my new Teddy together to the sounds of that song. I’d say I made him just the way I wanted him to be. I don’t mind if people would see this Teddy any way they think fit. That’s great that the meaning of it is open to interpretation, isn’t it?
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“Orsetto Mio”
There is a reason why I picked an Italian name for this Teddy. The Italian words stand for “my bear cub”.
By some twists of fate Italy has become a country that means a lot to me. Italian men were often courting me. One of my Italian dates and I became really close friends. He used to call me “My Bear Cub”; he knew that I made my living by making Teddy Bears. Once he invited me to Italy so that we might spend a vacation together. We were supposed to make a month-long trip across Europe. I decided to make a Teddy and give it as a nice present to my boyfriend. I had to take care of the Teddy’s wardrobe because it was going to be a long trip. I made some clothes for the Teddy and made the shoes for him to keep his little paws from chafing. Curiously enough, there was something about that Teddy that made him look a little like his would-be master. Well, enough of that long story concerning my adventures (or misadventures, for that matter) in Italy. When in Italy, I showed the Teddy to my friend, but didn’t say it was my present to him. It was obvious that the Teddy had had no intended effect on my boyfriend. I felt greatly disappointed. My disappointment was one of the reasons why I cut my trip short and boarded the first flight back to Moscow. “My Bear Cub” stayed with me. I’m confident that I would have made a big mistake if I had left him in custody of an uninterested owner. Orsetto Mio, my unlucky traveler, was soon spotted by a lady who “adopted” him. And I’m really happy that Orsetto Mio didn’t move to Italy. These days he has many friends and lives in the house of his caring lady owner.
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«Master Co»
This item is the one and only original ever made. The name for it came about naturally. It is an ornamental tool box for a Teddy Bear maker. “Co” means “company”.
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The birthday of Tatyana Pozdniakova, my friend from the company of teddy makers at the time (nowadays she is a chief editor of Teddy-Medveddy” (Teddy Bears) magazine) was just two days away when I realized that I had no present for her. It wasn’t hard to come up with an idea as to the nature of a present. My hands were moving fast and cleverly, doing what had to be done. The work of making the box went off without a hitch. I didn’t make preliminary sketches, making the pattern offhandedly, straight on the materials. First I made a part of the pattern, than I sew it, afterwards one more pattern and so on. All the components were measured and attached to each other on the previously cut and seamed parts. It took me two days and nights to make the box. Needless to say, I felt quite proud of myself on the day of my friend’s birthday. Tanya liked my present. “Master Co”. I thought that I’d make a number of copies of the box in the future. I got orders for it and even promised it as a gift for a competition winner. But I had no pattern per se, because I was fitting everything to the ready parts. So I never made any copies of the item in the end. There were a few attempts to do so, though.
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