Cynthia Bonneau-Green, Doll Maker

Cynthia Bonneau-Green sits on a comfy Queen Ann sofa, wearing a sunny-yellow cotton skirt and white cotton top. It’s a cool day in Republic, Washington, and Bonneau tucks her feet and knees under her for warmth. Behind her, high on a bookshelf that looks out over her yarn shop and gallery, sits Fiona and Ianthe, two of the Wisherwood dolls she created. They watch over us from a pleasant vantage point, their featureless faces somehow conveying friendliness and welcome. We’re interrupted occasionally by a deliveryman poking his head around the shop’s bright red door to gather signatures, or by customers stepping in to purchase yarns for a special project. In between, we sip our lattes and bask in the sunlight that warms the sofa.

“I didn’t know I was an artist, before I came to Republic,” Bonneau says as a preamble to our conversation about doll making. "I was living in LA and working as an investment advisor to municipalities that issued tax-exempt debt.” I have to look up from my notepad and ask her to repeat her title more slowly. Then I'm curious. It seems a long journey to take from "investment advisor" to "doll artist" and I ask how she came to be a doll artist and the owner of a yarn shop in Republic.

"I was born in 1951 and raised in Long Beach, California," Bonneau explains. Once her children were grown, she began considering relocation. “I didn’t want to be born and die in California." She had five criterions for her new home: there could be no state income taxes; she had to own her home free and clear; she had to be near water; the sun needed to shine most of the time; and she wanted at least one friend located nearby.

“Sometimes I name the doll…sometimes the doll wants to be named by the person they’re going to.”

Then, in the early-nineties, a friend of hers moved to the small town of Republic, in Ferry County, Washington. She recalls visiting her friend in the winter of 1994 “during the warmest [February] that Republic had seen in years.” She looked at a number of area properties and thought about moving, but talked herself out of it, because she was sure she “couldn’t live two hours from the nearest Nordstrom.” Back in California; however, she couldn’t stop thinking about how much she'd liked the area. Finally, she called her realtor and made an offer on a home located on the banks of the Kettle River. She also met and married her husband, Kevin Green, a graphic illustrator and craftsman.

Shortly after, she opened a coffee shop in Republic called the Loose Blue Moose, which she slowly transformed into a specialty yarn shop and small arts gallery. Recently, she began selling her dolls and clothing accessories online at Wisherwood.com. The ambiance of her home is charming and warmly comforting, as though designed by a feng shui master. Yarn needles peep from the tops of ceramic wine coolers. Tumbles of yarn and ribbons sit side by side with scented candles. Intimate arrangements of couches and tables invite visitors to linger over tea and conversation.

I asked Bonneau what first inspired her to create dolls. She responded that she’d had a friend who was an extremely artistic and intuitive flamenco instructor. “[Antonia] recognized something in me, " Bonneau explains.”She told me I needed to make dolls and that the dolls would begin talking to me.” Doll making wasn't as big of a leap for the former financial advisor as it might first seem. “I always enjoyed hand sewing as a child. When I was young, my parents bought me fabric, not clothes. I didn’t like sewing-machine work, but I liked the hand work.”

Bonneau took her friend's advice and created her first doll. She named her Antonia, after the woman who'd inspired her. "The second doll was my Fiona," Bonneau says with obvious affection for the doll that now graces a corner of the shop. “I originally called them the River House dolls, and I made them out of muslin." When she moved to Republic, she renamed them to the Wisherwood Dolls, for the fragrant woodlands behind her home. She's since made many dolls that have been adopted by doll collectors, friends, and even a classroom of children.

She hugs her knees. “When I do a doll, I don’t do anything else for two or three days. I sit at the table my mom got me and work all day. Sometimes I get up in the middle of the night to work.” As the new doll is formed, she places her with Fiona, “so she’s not alone.”

“Like true girls they have to have shoes and jewels first.”

Like many artists, Bonneau prepares herself for the creation of a new doll with simple rituals that help her clear her mind and stimulate her creativity. It’s important to her that she establishes a peaceful environment to work from where she can be certain she won’t be disturbed. First, she cleans up the room she will work in. Then she takes a relaxing bath, complete with bubbles and candles, and then dresses in her best velvets and satins. When she begins sewing, she works to music, such as Bach’s Goldberg Variations (only by Glenn Gould), Brahms, or Hildegard Von Bingem.

Bonneau starts simply, with the outline of the doll’s body on muslin. She stands up and leads me across the room to an alcove where an antique sideboard sits. She pulls open drawers filled with the makings of her dolls. "Before I start work, I pull out the beads, ribbons, and opulent fabrics and lay them all about me. The dolls help me pick out their clothes fabric and accessories. Like true girls [the dolls] have to have shoes and jewels first.” She drapes a length of lustrous ribbon across my palm and drops a small crystal on top of it. She continues, “I feel like I’m just a vehicle for the dolls wishes. I get a clear message that she wants this red velvet right here and that she wants her magic bag to look like this and she wants this in it.”

Each doll’s clothing is fashioned from velvets and satins and other luscious fabrics, some of which are vintage. "I have been collecting ribbons for years,” says Bonneau, “and I’m always on the lookout for the most exquisite ribbons I can lay my hands on.” She also carefully considers the jewelry and gemstones she uses, preferring Austrian crystal beads and glass beads for the doll's jewelry, and natural crystals -- dug from locations in Ferry County -- to place in the dolls' magic purses. There are no rules concerning her dolls’ hair, except that the yarn she uses “has to be incredibly beautiful with lots of different textures.” Hair color has no boundaries. An aficionado of Latin American literature, Bonneau admits that “heroines with green or blue hair seem quite natural to me.”

The completed dolls are a beautiful and intriguing contrast of textures, with the plain muslin fabric of the doll’s body juxtaposed against the rich fabrics of her clothing, the sparkle of beads, and the rough warmth of wood. Each of Bonneau’s dolls leaves for her new home with a small crystal rock, a piece of Wisherwood to sit upon, and a small card of introduction that provides the doll’s name and that of her companion. “Sometimes I name the doll,” Bonneau explains, “sometimes the doll wants to be named by the person they’re going to.”

Bonneau believes that her dolls will somehow communicate to their companions where they want to be placed in their new homes. She smiles wryly as she says it, and admits that it sounds crazy, even to her, but that she's found it to be true. She describes how one customer called her a few days after taking her doll home, and admitted that she'd been skeptical at first that the doll would care where it was displayed, but was now a believer. Bonneau says, "She told me that she'd found her [doll's] spot." As the customer described it, she'd first placed the doll over the mantle, but had experienced a nagging feeling that the doll wasn't comfortable there. She'd eventually moved the doll to a new location, and was convinced the doll was happier. I glance up at Fiona and Ianthe above us. They seem like two playful children contentedly swinging their feet from a tree branch. I wonder if they'd have that same look of contentment on their faces if they were sitting in another corner of the store.

Bonneau only makes a few of the special dolls a year. She admits that she often knows or has made a connection with the people who buy her dolls. "I’m not only giving someone a doll, but I’m giving them a part of me. It’s a gifting....”

Purchase Information

Visit WisherWood.com to see Bonneau-Green's artisan dolls, knit clothing and accessories, and knit and crochet patterns.

Contact Information

Cynthia Bonneau-Green
WisherWood Gallery & Yarn Studio
1003 South Clark Avenue
Republic, WA 99166
509-775-0441

Online at: WisherWood.com
ElectCynthia.com

Acknowledgements

Ferrycounty.com wishes to thank Cynthia Bonneau for allowing us to photograph and display photos of her dolls. Article by Sarah Lawrence, published on April 24, 2005, and updated February 08, 2008.

Readers: Ferrycounty.com welcomes your comments. Please email us at editor@ferrycounty.com. See more artist interviews on our Arts and Culture page.

Copyright 2004 - 2010 Ferrycounty.com. All rights reserved.

Fiona casts a friendly eye over the shop she graces.

Sofia is dressed in fine ribbons and adorned with crystal jewelry.

Ianthe wears a romantic, dark-blue velvet dress.

Ianthe shows off her velvet dress and ruffle.

Each doll carries a unique, "magic bag" that holds a secret stone.

A tiny wrist is adorned with a tiny fresh-water pearl bracelet.

Fiona and Ianthe perch contentedly on a piece of Wisherwood.