April, 2010

This may be more than you wish to know, but if you wish to know why I will not have a printed catalog, do read on. Due to recent major health issues, I am making dramatic changes to my business. One of the most obvious areas of concern that has to go is my longtime efforts to once again produce my catalog. If you previously sent in the $3.50 in hopes of receiving a catalog (we have kept track of all of those pre-paid requests), we will be refunding this money to you. If you really do want a catalog, I will be making my entire website into a printable copy that you can print out by fall of 2010. When it is ready, there will be various announcements (my email newsletters, on the New Items page in the menu, and as a banner on my homepage, plus there will be a link here to print it out on your home printer (or a friend's if you do not have a computer). At that time, I will also make available hard copies which can be purchased and those who once made requests for catalogs will get a postcard letting them know of this, but I no longer wish to hold anyone's money until it is real.

When I began my doll business in 1975, even in those first early days, I always produced an annual catalog. The first ones I didn't call catalogs because they were really only one page of hand written descriptions with line drawings like those I still have here on my website. As the scope of what I made grew and grew, the one page hand-written guy evolved into a small booklet which required about three weeks worth of typesetting and drawing and several thousand dollars to print and quite a lot more more to send out. In short, it became a big deal. But, it was loved and even collected by many fans and followers, and before the internet became a mainstay, it represented a large percent of the business I received. I kept producing them until about 2004, when unbeknownst to me, that year would be the last one that a catalog got printed and sent. You see what was evolving was that in 1996 I assembled my first online catalog and website. Gradually the expenses of computers, software, web fees and especially the tech help to manage and maintain a website far outstripped the annual budget previously allowed for printing and mailing a paper catalog. I could no longer afford to do both. But it goes against my grain of loving to do graphics to not have a paper catalog, plus many people prefer to have one (both those who do not have internet access and those who do place orders online). So, I proceeded to keep trying in good faith to plan how I would do another catalog somehow. Financial concerns became larger than ever so that even though I own paper enough to print one ourselves, here, the time to do it and the postage were still obstacles that stopped me in my tracks. No one is more upset than I am that this is so and I am sure everyone with even modest computer experience will know what I mean when I say that computers will kill us all in upkeep costs and costs to our mental health to deal with often insurmountable issues caused by a world demanding more and more (instantly) in turn causing the computer/software producers put out incomplete and doomed-to-have-bugs products that we are forced to buy, replace and learn to keep up with. However, it is fun to shop online and what did we ever do without google and all the search capabilites.

And now having made the hurdle past learning of early colon cancer, I have made plans for how I can best carry on this career of dollmaking. First, I have had to smallen down an ever-growing and impossible to maintain inventory of what it is I make and sell. But I still will continue to design dolls and don’t actually see myself as someone who will retire, so there will be many new dolls in the future. I do plan to do go back toward my roots of mostly finished dolls with a few new kit or pattern designs each year, but those to be limited, and I also intend to keep teaching. As it evolves in the next year it is possible that as I narrow down my focus, that the old one or two page catalog may become the new thing again, who knows, but for now, the internet and its demands are my boss, so I hope you will find yourself being able to see my work online.