THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, August 26, 1995 TAG: 9508250055
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY SUSIE STOUGHTON, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 192 lines
AS A CHILD, Mary Britt never cared much for dolls, preferring horseback riding and drawing to playing Barbies with her three sisters on their Iowa farm.
But two years ago, as she approached middle age, dolls became her passion.
Today, the former tomboy tenderly creates one-of-a-kind characters, breathing life into their soft bodies and sculpted faces, hands and feet.
``What I'm looking for is to create little souls,'' she said. ``I like to have life in them.''
With pastel chalks, she gives their cheeks a blush. She etches laugh lines around their eyes with an airbrush and fashions their hair from unprocessed wool. With tweezers, she places silken slivers of mink - a single strand at a time - on their eyelids, gluing them on to create eyelashes.
Then she dresses the dolls - ``little people,'' she calls them - in intricately detailed outfits, embellishing them with antique lace, beading or rhinestones.
And when she finishes, each creation assumes a special personality - some easily recognizable, like Santa Claus, Simon Bolivar or an orchestra conductor who could easily pass for Arthur Fiedler. Others are less well-known - like Agnes, a kind-hearted soul fashioned after one of Britt's favorite friends.
The little people - 2 to 3 feet tall - stand unassisted, their torsos stuffed so tight that they can't totter. They seem poised in midsentence of their life's stories - tales Britt hopes eventually to tell. She wants to write a narrative to accompany each doll she brings to life.
``My ultimate goal is to create little stories about each doll,'' she said.
Britt, 42, is a commercial artist who does advertising illustrations by day.
She designed Rip, the Norfolk Tides' 8-foot blue fur-ball - one of her best known local characters - and Surfman Sam, the mascot for the Life-Saving Museum of Virginia in Virginia Beach.
And she has worked for national clients such as McDonald's, Purina and Turtle Wax. She's done work for Spectrum Puppets, The Family Channel and Busch Gardens.
But after 5 p.m., when clients across the country quit clamoring for her attention, she devotes her time to her real love - doll-making.
``Sculpting is a whole different feeling,'' she said. ``It will be 4 in the morning and I don't realize it, and then, a little head is born.''
As a youngster, she loved to draw and dreamed of painting as a career. She first sketched horses like Satin, a white mare Santa left in the barn one Christmas.
She drew the family nativity set and scenes from vacations - always with details no one else would see.
``Mom started keeping a scrapbook when I was 4,'' she said.
Paper and drawing materials were always available, thanks to her mother, who encouraged the children to be creative. Three of their uncles were artistic, one of them a professional artist.
``I guess she thought one of her girls would be an artist,'' Britt said.
The third youngest, she was the only one to pursue a creative career. She graduated from Hawkeye Institute of Technology in Waterloo, Iowa, with a degree in commercial illustration, then worked as a clip artist for an advertising company.
Ten years ago, she moved east when her husband, Ron, got a job as a supervisor at Smithfield Packing Co. Now, she operates Britt Illustrations from their home just south of the village of Chuckatuck in northern Suffolk.
About two years ago, Britt entered her second childhood, frequenting a fantasy land peopled with characters many little girls adore. Her ambitions shifted from drawing to making dolls.
``I changed my dreams,'' she said. ``I had no idea I would enjoy this as much as I do. And I love it.''
She became enamored with dolls while pursuing another goal - illustrating a book.
An agency she works for connected her with Chesapeake poet James Scott, who needed someone to illustrate his poetry collection, ``Louder.''
Scott reads - or performs - his works in the Chesapeake city schools and has performed his verse on National Public Radio.
Britt did the pen-and-ink illustrations. And as she sketched, she visualized some of the figures as three-dimensional characters.
At 40, Britt - who had never borne a child though she helped raise two stepchildren - began to give birth. She's developing a second business, Another Dimension, to market her offspring.
``My dreams are to do children's books and the dolls,'' she said.
She hopes to illustrate more books, but her spare time is spent on her dolls.
She shares her sun-brightened studio with four cats: Missy Cat, Peeper, Tin Pan and 007. Her husband often returns from work to find her still creating - an arm here, a leg there.
``He comes home and finds body parts,'' she said.
But her attention isn't limited to limbs, torsos and heads. The costumes are vital to complete the total picture, she said.
She has boxes of materials she's culled from antique shops, thrift stores and yard sales.
``These are really pretty pieces I know are going to go on something someday,'' she said, pulling out a piece of antique lace she had found.
She sews the outfits, using bits of fur, pieces of fragile lace and scraps of brocade and other fine materials. She sometimes uses old doilies or a baby's cap for bodices, the tops of socks for turtlenecks, the bottoms for sleeves.
``My idea is to make the costumes just as special as the faces,'' she said.
People often ask where she gets her ideas.
``They just happen,'' she said, picking up a head from a shelf in her studio. ``This is what happens at night when I sit down and start sculpting.''
She designed the symphony conductor for the Chesapeake Arts Commission to illustrate a brochure for the city.
Dressed in a black tuxedo with his white hair askew, he stands with arms in midair, a baton in his right hand - ready to bring the orchestra to life.
Randy Harrison, Chesapeake arts coordinator, said Britt's dolls are strikingly lifelike.
``They have a personality,'' she said. ``She puts a spark in them.''
Her work also has a sense of humor, Harrison said, adding, ``It makes you laugh.''
But the best thing about Britt, Harrison said, is her personality.
``She is the most kind, unaffected, genuine person I've known,'' said Harrison, a fellow artist and former art teacher.
Each year, Britt donates a piece of work to a charity, such as the American Heart Association or American Cancer Society. She always wants to give something back, Harrison said.
She created Simon Bolivar to promote the Virginia Opera's premiere of the local production of the opera named for him. His costume is made of French cotton, hand-embroidered with gold threads.
Britt's first creation was a Santa Claus, the only one of those she has sold.
She doesn't disclose prices.
``The price depends on the type of doll and the kind of material I've used,'' she explained.
Parting with Santa caused some separation pains. But each doll is professionally photographed and copyrighted.
``It's OK,'' she said, ``as long as I have the photograph.''
One of Britt's favorites - although each doll is special to her - is Agnes, who has turned into a fairy godmother.
``I dreamed it,'' Britt said. ``I started thinking about it before I went to bed, and I couldn't sleep. I finally got up and worked on her.''
Agnes looks the part, Britt said, and she has the personality. ``That's the reason she was inspired,'' she said. ``I want each one to have a personality, a reason for being.''
Britt is working on an American Indian who will be riding a horse, and a little redheaded girl - her first try at creating a young person.
Britt has done more older people, such as a lady with white hair - the first of a pair she is creating.
Britt and her husband were at the Virginia Beach Oceanfront recently, leaning on the Boardwalk rail, when she spotted two women, who seemed to be mother and daughter, walking toward the water's edge.
The younger woman, wearing a black and white polka-dotted swimsuit, looked about 70. Her hair was cropped straight, and she was kind of pear-shaped.
The older woman - the one portrayed in the first doll of the pair - must have been in her 90s, Britt said. Her long, white hair was pulled back in a bun. She was wearing a purple plaid house dress, a pink cardigan sweater and a little, straw hat. She had a little purse tucked tightly under one arm, as if she couldn't put it down, although no one was nearby.
``She took off her shoes and stockings and stood in the water, as if she was saying, `I want to stand in the water one more time,' '' Britt said. ``She looked back with that kind of happy expression.''
There are countless more characters Britt wants to create.
``There are so many ideas running through my head,'' she said. ``I need more time.''
Britt's creations are not play things. They are designed for serious doll collectors or for people looking for a special gift.
Most are done on speculation, but she also takes consignments. She is casting a set of dolls for a family that wants an heirloom to represent their children.
She is improving with each creation, said Britt, a self-taught doll-maker.
``I'm a young artist as far as getting started,'' she said. ``I keep learning with each one.''
The dolls and the book illustrations have not become lucrative for her yet, so she keeps up with her illustration work during the day.
``I keep padding on my seat because I sit here a lot,'' she said, perched atop the stool in front of her work table.
``My dream is to work with the dolls. This affords me to do it.'' MEMO: For more information on her dolls, call Britt at 255-0514.
ILLUSTRATION: JOHN H. SHEALLY II/Staff photos
Let the music begin, conducted by an Arthur Fiedler-like doll.
RIGHT: Britt's Agnes doll modeled after one of her best friends, has
turned into a fairy godmother.
Mary Britt works on a doll in her Suffolk studion, after spending
the day doing advertising illustrations.
Britt created a Simon Bolivar doll for the Virginia Opera's premiere
production. His costume is hand-embroidered with gold threads.
Mary Britt, crafting hands and feet for a doll at left, also
designed Rip, the Norfolk Tides' 8-foot furry blue mascot, right.
by CNB