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Elizabeth Jenkins
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| 6/5/04
About the Artist This information was in an article in a doll magazine Elizabeth's father was a doctor who had a natural talent for drawing. He would draw an human skeleton, overlay all the muscles, and add the skin layers. He showed Elizabeth this at an early age, and soon she was able to do it as well as her father. Drawing became one of their ways of communicating. By the time Elizabeth was a teenager, she was drawing many successful portraits, and considered a career an an illustrator. Her first theater job was to be on the costume staff a Princeton University's McCarter theater. After that she attended the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, graduated Magna Cum Laude, and became the head costume designer for the Utah Shakespearan Company. She later moved to Boston and assumed a career in department store display. She became a member of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and learned to construct things out of hard materials. She worked with the Metropolitan Opera and American Ballet Company during those years. In 1985 she and her husband returned to Kansas City where she became the head costumer at the local theater company, and took the exam to enter The United Scenic Artist's Union. She costumed for the 5,000 seat Starlight Theater and formed an aliance with a costume rental company to make giant costumes for clients including Barnum & Bailey. One day she picked up a magazine that featured dolls and it was a 'light bulb moment'. She suddenly knew how she was going to create the characters that had long lived in her imagination. She took some polymer sculpting classes through the Midwest Coalition of Original Doll Artists, and then realized she was going to have to go the route of many independent artists so developed her own methods. Elizabeth finished her first figure in time to enter it in the 1999 Independence Doll Extravaganza. She wond the Grand Prize for it. She was asked to join the Santa Fe Doll Art Show where her doll won The Robert McKinley Award for the best new artist of 1999. In 2001 she was admitted to ODACA (Original Doll Artists Council of America). Elizabeth completed figures of the cast of 'Aint' Misbehavin' and began a series of "Newell Sprites", winged creatures who perch on wooden Newell door knobs. She also has a series of shelf dolls that have miniature shelves incorporated into their lower bodies. She is now filled with ambition to portray all the great jazz performers, because a stage performance is such a fleeting thing. "I want to catch an image that sums up my experience of that performance so I can fully share it with others. My goal is to make you hear the music with your eyes." Amelia Earhart Aviatrix Bessie Smith Big Mama Roxie Velma Ma Rainey Mr. John Dancerman Kansas City Legend Ya Better Believe It Dream Girl
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