Family Fun / Arts & Leisure

Doll's House: Melanie DeKeyrel Bell’s creations are far from Barbie

By David Burke | Monday, August 04, 2008 | () comments

Artist Melanie DeKeyrel Bell with her piece, "Tattoed Couple," at the Bucktown Center in Davenport. (Andrew Link/QUAD-CITY TIMES) Buy this Photo

Melanie DeKeyrel Bell’s interest in dolls has nothing to do with Barbies or Bratz.

Instead, they’re among the three dozen characters the Milan, Ill., native has created in her artwork, now on display at Bucktown Center for the Arts in Davenport.

“I guess I’ve always been interested in dolls,” the 31-year-old said, “just not playing with them as a child.”

Her interest was piqued at Bradley University in Peoria, Ill., where she developed a mentor relationship with an internationally known illustrator. He had a collection of dolls he had made, and she followed in his footsteps. By the time her graduate exhibition came around, “they completely took over my show,” she said.

Bell remembers her grandmother making cornhusk dolls and kept that in mind for what she calls modern-day folk art.

“I guess it brought everything I’d learned in my life full circle, that I could use all of these qualities,” she said.

Dolls are displayed in various poses in her exhibit on Bucktown’s second floor, where she is collaborating with painter Heidi Hernandez for an exhibit called “Duality of Whimsey.”

“I guess I just like to have fun with my work,” Bell said.

Donna Lee, who operates a shop in the same room as the studio display, said the response of individuals viewing the dolls has been intriguing to watch.

“The character of each of these figures, the sculptures, just evokes different reactions,” Lee said. “They see different things in each one. So far, very positive.”

Bell lives with another artist, ceramic maker and photographer Joshua Bell, whom she married a year-and-a-half ago, at their home in Peoria. She works as a cake decorator and he for a photo supply wholesaler.

There’s something lighthearted and everyday about dolls, Bell said.

“People will find them more approachable than other artwork that they’re not quite sure about,” she said. “If they were a little more sturdy, I wouldn’t mind if people picked them up and turned them over. I want them to be approachable.”

Bell has used a variety of media to create the dolls, going so far as to use her own hair and the hair of friends, as well as natural fibers and even cicadas preserved in resin.

“The challenge for me is to just find the next, newest, strangest thing — something uncommon that you wouldn’t really use to build a doll with,” Bell said. “That’s a challenge I give myself, to keep it creative and uncommon from other dolls.”

Even the recent windstorms, which struck her mother’s farm between Milan and Sherrard, Ill., came as a mixed blessing.

“With the storm, the roof flew off the barn,” she said. “I’ve been out there collecting shingles for the next doll I’m about to make.”

David Burke can be contacted at (563) 383-2400 or dburke@qct

IF YOU GO

What: “Duality of Whimsey,” with works by sculptor Melanie DeKeyrel Bell and painter Heidi Hernandez

When: Through Aug. 30; hours 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays

Where: MidCoast Arts at Bucktown, Suite 206, Bucktown Center for the Arts, 225 E. 2nd St., Davenport

How much: Free

Information: BucktownArts.com