The Magnificats

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The Chairman's letterhead complete with his photo and pawprint.

All the whimsical cat dolls are gathered for an official portrait in front of a giant hand painted mural.

We are heading into an important weekend! The entire gang has gathered for 5 days of meetings, classes, meals and work! But first we met for our official portrait.

Look at this background the Kreatrix painted for a show in New York City.

Colorful, huge hand painted canvas of whimsical houses surrounded by trees and grass and birdhouses.

This canvas mural is about 10 feet by 12 feet. HUGE!

Wally, Melvin and Rudy helped run the tech end of our photo shoot. Wally was the director of the shoot and constantly glared at Rudy and Melvin because they kept arguing.

Wally, a real life cat, lays on the canvas near the cat dolls.

Rudy and Melvin, real life cats, give each other the stink eye.

In the above photo you can see some of the tensions flaring with our tech crew.

Melvin, a real life cat, raises up on his hind legs to inspect one of the lights mounted for the photo shoot.

Melvin and Rudy did a great job hanging the lights.

Rudy inspects another light.

Meet our newest member! A brand new MAGNIFICAT!

A new Magnificat doll is introduced. It is gray and has an embroidered flower around its neck.

 

Our hand painted fabric rocks!

Closeup of a tweed heart patch on the chest of the Opie Doll Magnificat.

The heart patch on Opie the Magnificat's chest is made from a man's old suit. It had moth holes in it but the Kreatrix cut it apart and is making stuff with it!

Wally, the real life cat, inspects the dolls as they pose for their group photo.

As much as I get irritated with Wally. Kreatrix is making me tell the truth here. So let me rephrase that first sentence:  As much as I am jealous of the attention Wally gets from her and I shouldn't be because she loves us all...whatever. He did a good job directing our photo shoot.

Wish us luck! We get to take a workshop this weekend from the CEO on using something called Bondo. I signed up for the class hoping I'd learn how to be like James Bond. Ginger said Bondo is something that will help repair the World Dominationmobile. Either way, I win!

The CEO cat doll made from a mans suit coat.

And yes, Dude has a "thing" for the denim beauty sitting next to him. So far she's playing coy. Stay tuned.

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The Chairman's letterhead complete with his photo and pawprint.

Our Crazy Cat Lady has turned into some kind of voodoo soft-scupltured cat doll maniac!

The pressure of her back being thrown out and carried off by the garbage truck has just been too much!

I offer up Exhibit A:

Remember meeting Opie the Magnificat the other day?

Opie the Soft sculptured cat dall stands about 18 inches tall and is made out of recycled mens' suits.

Well get a load of this:

The head of an orange soft-sculptured cat doll with pins holding fabric in place.

Uh-huh. Kreatrix was sitting with a heating pad on her back and sticking pins into this cat head.

I offer up Exhibit B:

Orange soft-sculptured cat doll head propped on top of an empty large wine bottle. Pins are holding fabric in place.

Now correct me if I'm wrong, but is that, or is it not,  a WINE BOTTLE? And the little kitty's head is just jammed on it with pins sticking out. I...I...I ask you, is this right?

The Chairman posing with the cat hold on the wine bottle. The Chairman is frowning.

...oh lord, here she comes. Gotta go.

Kreatrix here. I've just read the above and am going to post it as is. I see I need to have a discussion with The Chairman and explain a bit about how I make the Magnificats. Sorry he had to see the head on the wine bottle but a wine bottle is actually good to use for two reasons:

  1. The head fits perfectly and firmly on the bottle neck thus allowing me to sculpt with fabric.
  2. It's best if the bottle is empty.  :-}

The Chairman just hollered from the back room:

"Soft-sculptured cat doll! Soft sculptured cat doll!"

Apparently those are our intended keywords for our lovely neighbors the search engine spiderbots who will be dining upon our content after I've posted this. And if you're confused about spiderbots and what they mean to us at Catberry Tails, please go here.

Thank you for spending a few moments with us!

 

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The Chairman's letterhead complete with his photo and pawprint.

Confession: I Have Prototypes and Magnificats in My Family Tree

Again. More drama on the home front. Turns out I got some "interesting" family history. Sheesh.

Everything was all neat and tidy and humming along until I found this on the floor:

A cloth body part for a cat doll. Very rough. A prototype.

Melvin the-real-life-cat was carrying it around in his mouth. I asked the Kreatrix what it was and she got all weird.

I said to her:

"Lady, you are giving me a bad case of the howling fantods. Explain yourself!"

That's right. I used a FANCY WORD! Go look it up. Some of us are improving ourselves.

The CEO and Kreatrix got all whispery and gathered us together for an emergency meeting. She got two baskets out of the magic closet in her studio and set it on the floor.

A pile of trial and error body parts for dolls are heaped in a basket.

We rummaged through it, the pieces all looking oddly familiar. Dude whispered what we were all thinking.

"They look like....body parts."

I was about to perform peristaltic pyrotechnics on the rug but the Kreatrix pulled me close and said very quickly:

"I had to practice building all of you, sort of trial and error, and what you see here were the first attempts. These even came before the CEO!"

The Chairman is looking up at the Kreatrix while he touches a doll part.

So. The curtain is pulled back on the wizard, huh? I let out a little growl and exclaimed:

"And you just toss them to the cats like they were cheap little toys! Well... I never!"

The CEO gave me the stink eye and said to the Kreatrix.

"It's time."

The Kreatrix left the room and quietly returned with this spectacular cat thingy and set it on the floor.

A beautiful, tall soft sculptured cat doll made out of an old suit.

Kreatrix looked sad and walked away. The CEO explained:

"When Opie, the real-life magnificat, went to live with the wise ones, the Kreatrix was so upset she closed herself away and built this homage to him."

Wally joined us for the story because he actually knew Opie the Magnificat!

Wally sits next to the CEO and the beautiful Opie doll.

"She was very determined to create something of beauty, just like she was with us. And beauty takes time. So suck it up little man and apologize to the Kreatrix."

I later learned that Melvin kept breaking into the closet and stealing the pieces. Maybe in 2014 I will learn not to jump to all the wrong freaking conclusions!

So here is Opie the Magnificat!

Head shot of beautiful art doll. His features are folded and sculpted from an old wool suit.

Opie the Magnificat full body shot. His patchwork spots are made out of darker men's suit material. He stands about 18 inches tall and his tail wraps around to the front of his body.

Opie the Magnificat's feet and tail.

Ginger didn't seem to have much problem with all of this. Girls! She latched onto this prototype.

A miniature version of the Opie style doll but it has no eyes.

I said

"GinGin, it has NO EYES!" but she didn't care.

So sometimes skeletons in your closet turn out to be beautiful things and throwing howling fantods is a waste of really good energy.

All hail Opie the Magnificat!

A beautiful photo of the real-life Opie.

And for your spiderbots looking for something to eat on this blog and barf up on Google, here ya go: Opie the Magnificat is a soft sculpture cat doll. That's right. A soft sculpture cat doll.