The MaVa doll was conceived in the later years of my undergraduate studies when I was stumbling around seeing an aesthetic “ home’, and the artless innocence of this form, originating from the basic hand shape, given a face that could be either male or female, fit that niche. American Sign Language is my chosen communication medium, my linguistic Mecca, and the doll is an offspring of the popular “I Love You” hand shape. I call it MaVa using the first two letters of my first and last name. It became, through my many experiments, everyman and everywoman, and exercised its appeal not just on me, but seemingly on everyone, for sales of objects I made using this basic design, were prolific. And then I found myself running to meet art history head on! For this form could be changed to convey various agendas. The sky was the limit! I drowned in materials, textures, and surfaces. I floated in MaVa dolls and everything that glittered, whispered, shone or sunned. I got up to my eyeballs in handbags, clothing, and furs. I could not be even be awake but I did have the sewing machine whirring out new things, and I’d be like a needle in one hand, a paint brush in the other. You ever have days like that?
