Virginie Ropars

Guest of Honor
DABIDA day April 11, 2010

DID YOU GREW UP IN A CREATIVE FAMILY?

Some of my cousins are artists involved in jewelry making, and graphic novels. It's not really a creative family I would say, but a few members have creatives hobbies. My parents are creatives in their way, and they always were supportive with me. That is really important to have support from people close to you. To me it was a blessing.



HOW LONG ARE YOU MAKING DOLLS, FROM WHICH AGE?

I made my very first doll in 2003, so it still recent for me. But I've always been making things, leather accessoiries, clothes, jewelry, embroideries ... etc ... and I've been a computer graphic artist before making dolls, I worked for video games and TV cartoons for several years, I made 3D modeling and textures, and environnement lightings and special effects in video games. My first love is drawing and illustration and I have a strong background in art in general with my studies.



HOW DID YOU START DOLLMAKING ?

It happened all of a sudden.. But I think I was unconsciously looking for a media that could content all the different things I loved to make, professionaly with the 3D and drawing, and all the stuff I used to make in my spare times, the idea of doll making just became obvious one day. I didn't know a thing about doll art, but I decided to start with the polymer clay I knew. I'm completely self tought in doll making, but my artistic background helped me a lot to start quickly with good results, the first dolls were kinda monsters though.
I love dollmaking because you always learn and improve, the technics and the fields to explore are nearly endless, that really helps to have it always exciting and new. The more you improve your skills the more complicated things you can do and so on. That is highly motivating.



WHAT MATERIAL DO YOU USE ?

I use polymer clays, various, and I do my own mix when necessary to get the good modeling texture, soft or hard, and hardness or flexibility when the clay is cured. I don't like much working with water and polymer clay make my fingers happy. It's a modern material, very capricious, it has to be perfectly baked to be resistant in time, but with experiments you can reach a very good quality of the baked material itself and a very good looking, there are always new type of clays coming out of this clay industry and that helps a lot to find solution to tricky problems, like flexibility for exemple. I use polymer clays for the skin parts of my dolls, inside it's another thing, I make complicate structures with removable parts, most of my dolls now come in 4 parts, they are tall and the structure has to be strong. Making removable parts allows bigger pieces and more tricky works but it's a hard and precise work on structure, kinda boring sometimes but you can't give it up. I use apoxy clays, air drying clays, ultra light polymer, on the metal structures and other stuff. And fabric for the body sometimes. Depending on the kind of doll I'm making.



WHAT IS YOUR INSPIRATION ?

the list is too long I couldn't tell you, it can be everything, nature, a fabric, a color, a detail in a movie, in a book, that strikes something in me. I try to feed my brain everyday with new and beautiful things (my point of view) as much as I can. And while I work I always have books and dvd's around. Currently on my working desk there are : a book about serpents, a book about moths, books about Kay Nielsen, Arthur Rackham, Edmund Dulac, Jozef Mehoffer, the catalogue of a british exhibition "The Last Romantics", one small book about Tudor England, and I watch from time to time bits of "Camelot" the 60's film with Richard Harris and Vanessa Redgrave, "La Reine Margot" from Patrice Chereau and I'm currently reading a gothic fantastic novel "la baronne trépassée" from Ponson du Terrail a french XIXcentury writer. My inspiration is what I've always loved since I'm a child, beautiful costumes and fabrics, animals, vegetals, insects, feminine figures and fantasic creatures, dressed animals.... and so on...



WHY DO YOU CHOOSE TO WORK "DARK" ?

because it's what I have inside, the word dark is a good word, but I don't work on dark for dark, to me I work on the light side of dark, on what makes the dark impressive and close to humanity. I work on feminity mainly, on the poisonous side of feminity sometimes. There is a sentence on my myspace page I took out from a book about art nouveau: "Cult of a kind of beauty, nature and feminity containing within itself all that is good, all that is wicked. Life with colorful explosions in its flowering, muddy and capricious at its roots...in the dark ground" It is exactly what I'm talking about in my work, constantly, because it has always fascinated me.



DO YOU OFTEN EXHIBIT YOUR WORK ?

I show in art galleries during the whole year, in Paris, Moscow and Berlin, I show in some annual art group shows sometimes in France and abroad, and in illustration festivals, luckily I have some good friends in illustration world and work sometimes on collaborative works with them. Alas I no longer participate to doll shows, because I don't have enough time or enough works available.



The dolls and figures of Virginie are featured in the
following magazines and books

MAGAZINES:
--DOLLS-(USA) November 2009
--LE ROYAUME DES Fées (FRANCE) (online) summer 2009
--FEE DIVERS (FRANCE) Spring 2009
--HAUTE (USA) (online)- spring 2009
--DOLLS -(USA)- 12/2008
--ELEGY -(FRANCE)- 12/2008
--BAZOOKA MANDARINE -(FRANCE)- (online) 11/2008
--DOLLREADER -(USA)- 10/2008
--ZINK magazine -(USA)- autumn 2008
--GOTHIC BEAUTY -(USA)- 09/2008
--BRETAGNE magazine -(FRANCE)- summer 2008
--DOLLWORLD -(RUSSIA)- Eté 2008
--POPPEN -(NETHERLAND)- Eté 2008
--FEMALE PERSUASION -(USA) (online)- 06/2008
--DIFmagazine -(PORTUGAL)- 2008
--BPMmagazine (online) -(USA)- 2008
--FACEmagazine -(GERMANY)- 2008
--HI-FRUCTOSE (online) -(USA)- 04/2008
--NINJA MAGAZINE (online and paper)- (FRANCE)- 12/2007
--JUXTAPOZ (online) -(USA)- 11/2007
--ELEGY -(FRANCE)- 09/2007
--DOLL international -(RUSSIA)- spring 2007
--OURS ET POUPEES -(FRANCE)- 05/2007

BOOKS:
--SPECTRUM 16- the best in contemporary fantastic art- -(USA)- 11/2009
--SPECTRUM 15 -the best in contemporary fantastic art- -(USA)- 10/2008
--ART FIGURATIF et poupées contemporaines de collection- -(FRANCE)- 10/2008
--500 HANDMADE DOLLS- -(USA)- 08/2007



WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS FOR THE FUTURE ?

I'm working on two exhibition next year, a rather big one (for me) in Berlin in June, and another one with some french and english artists working in different fields, all together working on a same theme, a medieval XII century text, this will be shown in 4 places successively, a castle nearby, then Rennes in Brittany, then the exhibition will cross the channel to be shown in Chaggford in Dartmoor, and Exeter. I'm also involve in the organization of that show, and we have good hope to show it in Paris and London too.
Apart from that I'm working on a book, with Olivier Ledroit, a french illustrator, the texts will be written by Pat Mills. It's a long term work and we all work on that when we have time left so it may take quite a long time before it gets out in bookstores, but allows us to make it as good as possible.
And on April 11th it seems I will make a trip to Netherlands !! :)



WHAT ADVISE DO YOU LIKE TO GIVE TO STARTING DOLLMAKERS ?

Be creative and authentic ! as you can probably make a doll with everything that comes under your hand, let your inspiration flow, of course you might not reach your best in each doll, but nevermind, the upcoming one will surely be better and the next one better, and the next one better.... . Always be yourself, try to find your very own inner vision of doll, nourrish your creativity as much as you can with things that ring bells in you, be curious, aventurous, but also be honnest with yourself. Be generous in your work. Because your very own best always comes if it's YOU behind what you do.

Contact information Virginie Ropars:
E-mail:
virginie.ropars@gmail.com
Website:
http://vropars.free.fr
www.myspace.com/virginieropars