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March Member of the Month - Meet Dawn!
By Heidi Cleveland
I would like to introduce you to our March Member of the Month, Violet2Dawn (Dawn). She has been a member of the Greenleaf community since July 3, 2007. Dawn resides in the state of Connecticut and is my miniature neighbor. I have met her in real life and she is a great person to know.
Dawn has been married for fifteen years and has a fourteen-year-old son who was born on Elvis` birthday. She is the oldest of seven children. Dawn went to college in Pennsylvania and received her BS degree in Home Economics education. Right out of college she taught but decided that better pay in the hospitality field in hotel management was what she wanted to do. She did that for ten years. For six years she worked in retail at House of fabrics (which later became Joann’s fabrics). She took a year off and then she went back to teaching. At one school she taught interior decoration, fashion design, as well as culinary arts. Now we know where she got her talents in dollhouse decoration!
Currently Dawn works as a substitute teacher in her local middle school. She has also taught classes in sewing, quilting, rubber stamping and silk ribbon embroidery in local retail shops.
Dawn became interested in miniatures at the age of fourteen. Her best friend collected dolls and often asked Dawn to dress them for her. During this adventure she stumbled upon the Nutshell News. She fell in love with miniatures right then and there. Her childhood was not perfect so the perfection of miniatures drew her in. Dollhouses and miniatures were a way, for a moment, to have perfection in her life. For her fifteenth birthday she asked for a wooden dollhouse. She picked a four-room farmhouse made of birch with a hinged attic. It was completely unfinished. She joined the House of Miniatures kit club and babysat to pay for her kits. When she turned sixteen she started working at a bakery to pay for her passion. As for the fourteen-year-old friend, she is still Dawn’s best friend to this day.
Dawn’s first major dollhouse build was the Newburg.
She was in her early 30s and she said she was sure she knew what she was doing. Until she opened the box and saw all the pieces. She tried to follow the directions but became very frustrated. She ended up looking at the pictures and building it from that. I think she did an excellent job. That house was recently donated for her old high schools fundraiser. It was won for $175.
Dawn categorizes herself as a decorator. She enjoys building dollhouses but construction is second to the decorating of them. Decorating is so intense for her. The details, no matter how small, have to be perfect in her mind’s eye. She will search to the ends of the earth for just the right piece. She is very careful when decorating in researching a period or era. She measures placement distances, scale of fabric, types of wallpaper. She tends to plan her decorating first then refines it until it is perfect and doable. Her favorite part of dollhouse building is kit bashing. She is always looking for ways to upgrade. Dawn dreads roofing dollhouses. She hates it. She can draw guidelines but her “crooked” eyes still throw off the end result every time. Me too Dawn, me too.
I will always ask the eternal question, “If you could only keep one house and only one, which one and why?” Dawn said that was a tough question. She decided that the Tennyson she is working on now would be the keeper. She is in love with this house.
She was torn though. Her favorite house is her Buttercup Cottage.
She said she accomplished many things with that house and she just loves it. It was a delight to build and decorate. She said if she had to only have the Tennyson, she would have to find a loving home for the Buttercup first.
Dawn has many hobbies besides miniatures. She said, “You name it. I can do it!” Including miniatures and dollhouses Dawn does sewing, quilting, cross stitch, painting, knitting, doll dressing, scrap booking (my finger are getting tired.LOL). One of the best hobbies she does, in my opinion, is Pysanky.
Pysanky are Ukrainian Easter eggs. Patterns are drawn on the egg with wax, which then protects the covered areas from the dye that is applied. By repeating this process with different colors of dye, a multi-colored pattern is built up. Finally, the wax is removed to reveal the colors that were covered up at each stage. The symbols and colors used are rich in meaning; many pre-date the arrival of Christianity, and have had Christian interpretations layered on afterward.
Dawn’s ultimate dream would be to own a Rik Pierce house. He does fantastic things. Dawn would love to learn how to wig dolls and paint miniature paintings. She says they both intrigue her but intimidate her at the same time. She has made dolls before but has always purchased the wigs for them.
Dawn has many projects lined up for 2008. She wants to visit all of the miniature shops in Connecticut. She wants to finish the Tennyson and make Lady Violet S Vyne happy. She would like to finish her Willow Fairy’s Perfume shop
Dawn also wants to give lots of attention to the Washington she received from Ann in New York. Dawn wants to give it back to Ann so she can donate it to her worthy dollhouse cause. She also wants to get back her original dollhouse that her niece now has in her Brooklyn, NY apartment and give it the TLC it deserves.
I asked Dawn if she had any advice for the up and coming miniaturists. She said that you should join a club or forum like Greenleaf. Read as much as you can on the subject. Ask questions. Nothing is too silly to ask. She always tells her students that no one accomplishes anything perfectly the first time, and that practice does make perfect, eventually. Dream big and be proud of every single thing you accomplish no matter how small it may be. Great advice Dawn.
You can see all of Dawn’s eye candy in her Gallery here.
For participating in being the Member of the Month, Dawn will receive a $25 gift certificate to the Greenleaf Store.
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