The Final Post

Wow, what a journey it’s been to create this little bear!

I’ve already presented my final project, so I feel almost as if I’m cheating by writing this post. I’ll start with the journey to create the bear, and end with notes on the presentation.

As I mentioned in my other posts, I have worked on this piece with help from my grandmother. I don’t think I could have done it without her. I think part of this experience was learning from her and gaining from her experience. While the project called for internet tutorials, I think being able to learn from my grandmother was more valuable. That being said, we did have quite a few clashes of personality, as she wanted to move at her speed and I was still stuck on mine! However, we compromised and moved at a pace that suited both of us.

One area that I was especially grateful for Nana’s help in was in deciphering the instructions. We thought the instructions were good, but they skipped steps and were generally all over the place. It took a lot of trial and error to figure out how to make the bear. I think that, in the future, I’ll be able to read instructions better.

Another thing I learned is that cotter pins don’t produce the tight joints that I wanted, giving the bear a looser, loved look. That worked for the project, but it wouldn’t work as well if I wanted to give the bear away as a present.

Researching trauma for this project brought out a lot of emotions for me, and I was able to deal with those emotions through the artistic process.

I originally decided to have the bear buried in garbage, but the professor pointed out the isolating nature of trauma. That changed my mind. I decided to have the bear alone behind a plinth, and have flashlights pointing to the bear. This was my original idea. A few days before I was going to present, I had the idea of including a little story to go with my display. I thought of this because teddy bears are a fixture in children’s stories. I wanted to add real statements that abusers said to their victims, so I went to the amazing Project Unbreakable  for inspiration. It really made the difference, I think.

My presentation went very well, I think. I feel like my classmates understood what I was going for.

 

The Bear is Finished!

After months of hard work, the little bear that could is finally finished.

However, I don’t know how smooth of a finish it was. The pattern had no instructions to attach the arms, so I figured that they should probably be attached in the same manner as the legs.The arms and legs are jointed, of course, so this was a little bit harder than simply sewing them on. There weren’t many good examples of how to use cotter pins online, so the arms and legs wound up being a bit MacGyvered.

These are cotter pins with discs

The trick to the cotter pin is relatively simple when you get the hang of it. First, stuff the limb of the bear through a hole. Make sure the hole is where you want the joint to be. Second, place a disc and washer (in that order) over the rounded side of the pin. Then, sew a gathering stitch around the hole used for stuffing  (I found a cool video demonstrating it in this post). Attaching to the body is a little bit harder. The body of the jointed bear isn’t stuffed until last (as seen in the picture below). To complete the joint, one takes the pointier end of the pin and poking it through the body of the bear. Then, one puts a disc and washer over the pin. After that, one takes a pair of needle nosed pliers and bends the pin apart (in the above picture, the pin has a longer part and a shorter part, these are what is bent apart). Repeat four times for all of the limbs!

Poor unstuffed teddy

This is a bear with legs and no stuffing

After you finish attaching the limbs, you stuff the bear and voila! You’re done!

My bear didn’t turn out quite like the picture, but I think it’s a fair first try.

 

Art Research: Trauma

Hey everyone,

As I’ve hinted to, this project is about trauma. Trauma is a complicated subject, and I decided to break some of it down for you here.

The simple definition of trauma, according to the Merriam Webster dictionary, is  ” a very difficult or unpleasant experience that causes someone to have mental or emotional problems usually for a long time”.   This is only the tip of the iceberg. In psychology, the definition of trauma expands to add that the experience described in the earlier definition is one that the individual is unable to cope with, and involves a degree of fear.

There’s a great video by the United States Veterans Health Administration that describes PTSD, one of the reactions to trauma, better than I could. I’ve included it below:

Some of the symptoms of trauma are:

Shock, denial, or disbelief Anger, irritability, mood swings Guilt, shame, self-blame Feeling sad or hopeless

Confusion, difficulty concentrating Anxiety and fear Withdrawing from others Feeling disconnected or numb

Insomnia or nightmares Being startled easily Racing heartbeat Aches and pains

Fatigue Difficulty concentrating Edginess and agitation Muscle tension

These symptoms are often the same in adults and children, but children tend to act out their traumatic experiences with toys and through artwork. Children, because of their differing cognition from adults, may also form different opinions about causality of trauma than adults. Take one of my favourite characters, Batman/Bruce Wayne. While his loyal butler Alfred blames Joe Chill for shooting the Waynes, as a child Bruce blames himself because he made his parents leave the theater.

I chose to focus my project more around childhood trauma than adult trauma because of the teddy bear. Children have very personal and powerful relationships with their toys, and trauma changes this relationship. In movies, TV, and real life the first thing that a child is given after a traumatic event is a beloved cuddly toy. After trauma children may also latch onto a toy like a teddy bear as a form of security.Playing with toys can be used a therapeutic approach to help a child deal with trauma. On the other hand, one of the possible symptoms of trauma in children is that they lose interest in playing with their toys and discard them. This just shows the many ways toys relate to trauma.

A New Direction

Hey everyone,

As I’ve been working, I’ve realized that I probably won’t have time to complete three bears as I originally hoped. What I’ve decided to do is make the bear I’ve already been working on and turn it into the “trauma bear”–a teddy bear that represents how a traumatized individual feels.

It’s hard to see in the right picture, but the little bear has a little mouth that I used red thread to stitch over and give the idea that his mouth is sewn shut. I was worried that wouldn’t be subtle enough, but I think it might be a surprise to viewers looking closely at it because it can’t really be seen from a distance.

I also had to make some adjustments to the eyes: I didn’t realize that the eyes I bought needed to be added while the head was unstuffed, and I could not undo the stitching to get them in. I wound up using black buttons instead of the lovely safety eyes I bought. I like the look of the buttons better, however. I think it contributes to the charm of the bear.

That’s all I got for now, folks.

 

A Reflection on Teddy Bear Art

I have been searching the internet for days to find good examples of Teddy Bear art. I have seen many examples of beautiful handmade bears, such as here on the Duffy Antiques blog. I tried to find at least three examples of teddy bear art blogs, but a lot of them were poorly designed or hadn’t updated in a while.

I’m a little disappointed that I haven’t seen a lot of people pushing the boundaries of teddy bear art, aside from the undead teds that I’ve already covered. Most teddy bear art is very whimsical and cute, but I haven’t seen much that really questions the purpose of the teddy bear in society. I hope that my work adds something that hasn’t been seen often in teddy bear art.

Building Bears: Resources

Here are some cool resources that I found about the things that I did in my last progress post. First, this video is a good tutorial on how to gather fabric:

I also attempted (and failed) today to use a ladder stitch to attach the ears to the bear. I decided that I should watch a tutorial before I attempt it again. I found this video, which is a little longer than the other one, but it’s a good video. I also appreciated that Wendi used the ladder stitch to sew up a bear, which is what I’ll be doing eventually. I don’t know how helpful it will be for sewing an ear onto a bear, so I may have to try a different stitch to get that one on. I shall have to see my sewing consultant.

Unfortunately I couldn’t find a video that showed how to cotter pin joint a teddy bear, or any online tutorials. I was rather disappointed.

Building Bears: Progress

The parts finally arrived from Ontario, so the making of the teddy bear has begun! We have decided to work on assembling one bear at a time, as I decided to get more fabric for the trauma bears. Nevertheless, we have all the supplies.

Unfortunately, I was unable to find mohair at any of the fabric stores in Regina. I decided not to order mohair fabric online due to the cost. I was unable to find another fur fabric that suited my needs so I decided to go with fleece for the bear. I thought this was a suitably cuddly fabric that would be easy to work with. I also broke from traditional bears and decided to use environmentally friendly stuffing to stuff my bear.

Today I cut out all the parts for one bear and began working through the instructions. My sewing consultant (Grandma) was there supervising my work the whole time. We used tracing material instead of cardboard as per the instructions, due to ease. This wouldn’t be the first time we broke from the instructions.

Master Builders don’t need instructions

 

 

As we worked, we realized that it would be easier to use a sewing machine to build the bears than hand stitching. We figured that the original teddy bears, except for the prototypes, were likely sewn by machines.

I managed to get the basic shape of the head done today, and inserted my first joint. Turns out the joints are very easy to install! First, one puts the pin through the washer and joint board. Then, one uses a gathering stitch around the neck joint to pull the fabric around the joint. Then, you gather the fabric around the joint and tie it off.

I had to break from the instructions. Rather than sewing the gusset to the teddy face (fun fact: “gusset” in teddy bears means part of the head, but in clothes sewing it’s the groin area of the pants) from nose to neck, I had to sew from neck to nose. This made the bear’s face a little bit uneven, but luckily it’s on the nose and will be covered up by the embroidery thread used to make the bear a nose.

Here is the total of my progress today:

Art of Teddy Bears: Undead Teds

I discovered Undead Teds a while ago, and remembered them today when I was researching teddy bear artists. Here is an example of their work:

What separates the Undead Teds from the other teddy bears artists I researched isn’t just their gruesomeness. Caldas-Coulthard and van Leeuwen (2003) state that teddy bears represent both the wild/the untamed and the civilized because they are designed to resemble both children and a wild animal. I think that the Undead Teds take this idea to its extreme. The goriness of the designs are juxtaposed with the innocence of childhood, perhaps communicating that childhood can be cruel and bloody, or questioning the line between something cherished and something reviled.

The creator of Undead Teds, Philip Blackman, has this to say about Undead Teds:

My name is Phillip Blackman, I live in the UK in the beautiful Suffolk countryside with my long-time partner Rebecca and our two young sons.

My educational background is in art & design, with particular interest and specialism in illustration and special effects (not necessarily at the same time). In 2009, while chatting with Rebecca about what to buy for the newborn baby of a close friend, she suggested a teddy bear. Except, she had a cold at the time and it came out as deady bear! My imagination was caught and I spent the next few months thinking about zombie teddy bears, however with a newborn baby of our own, the idea soon got put to the back of the shelf.

In 2012, I began making prototypes and testing the water with friends and then customers. In January 2013, UndeadTeds went viral and the rest as they say, is history.

I find the Undead Teds interesting as well in regards to my project, which will be dealing with trauma. I, like Philip Blackman, will be making a teddy bear that will hopefully question what is cute. I don’t think I will be going as far as Blackman and making the teddy bloody, but it will not be something that is easy to look at.

 

 

 

Sources:

Carmen Rosa Caldas-Coulthard & Theo van Leeuwen (2003) Teddy Bear

Stories, Social Semiotics, 13:1, 5-27, DOI: 10.1080/1035033022000133490

 

Assemble the Parts!

The first step in the project has been taken. I have decided on a pattern for my teddy bears. I narrowed it down from several patterns found here after consulting with an experienced sewer (my grandma). The pattern that I chose is here, and makes a teddy bear named “Baby Pip”.

This pattern makes a 27 cm tall bear that is oh so cute. I can’t wait to mutilate it for art!

The materials for traditional jointed teddy bears are pretty standard, except for the joints. There are different types of joints. Plastic safety joints are used when the bear is designed for use by children, but teddy bear artists prefer to use metal joints due to better evenness of the joint movement. Because I am not planning to give any of my bears to a child, I decided to use the metal joints.

There are a couple different types of joints that you can use to make a teddy bear. I chose to use cotter pins, which are good for small bears such as dear little Pip. They are also the traditional joint used in teddy bear making, as opposed to more modern joints such as nut and bolt joints and wobble joints. I ordered my joints from Shamrock Rose, a company based out of Ontario. Most of the places that I looked at in Canada for Teddy bear joints were in Ontario–what a funny coincidence!

This video provides a good tutorial of the cotter pin process, but focuses more on other jointing methods. Still, it’s a great resource!

 

 

Sources:

http://teddy-talk.com/viewtopic.php?id=15424

http://www.bearbasics.co.uk/cotter-pin-joints/p42

 

A Brief History of Teddy Bears

When I decided to make traditional teddy bears for my art 221 project, I decided to research the history of the teddy bear. The history of this beloved toy is surprisingly as whimsical as the little fuzzy critters themselves.

The teddy bear was introduced almost simultaneously by the Steiff Company in Germany and the Ideal Novelty and Toy Co. in the United States.

The Steiff Company was the first company to manufacture stuffed animals, beginning in 1880. Their teddy bears were based off of the designs of Richard Steiff and were based off of real life bears that Steiff observed at his local zoo. The toys were shown at the Leipzig toy fair in 1903, where an American buyer ordered a shipment of the bears to be sent to the United States. The bears were famously shipwrecked on their way over the ocean, and the bears did not catch on the same way in Europe as the United States.

Meanwhile, in the United States, a famous story appeared about President Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt. As the story goes, while on a bear hunting expedition, the president had yet to shoot any bears. The president’s hunting party, in an effort to save the trip, found an old bear and tied it to a tree for the president to shoot. He refused, because killing the old bear would be unsportsmanlike. He did ask, however, that the bear be put out of its misery. A cartoon was made of this incident, but the cartoon turned the old, sickly bear into a cub. Toymakers Morris and Rose Michtom, in Brooklyn, New York, loved the idea of this bear and made a toy bear cub based on the cartoon. The bear was an instant hit. Michtom found himself mass-producing the bears, and he founded the Ideal Novelty and Toy Company.

In the 1920’s, books and stories featuring teddy bears as main characters began to gain popularity, a popularity that has never really gone away. Production of teddy bears in Europe, home of the Steiff company, stopped during World War 2, but production resumed after the war and has continued proudly since. Unjointed teddy bears have largely replaced the more traditional European bear due to ease of washing, but teddy bear collectors and “Arctophiles” are still drawn to the traditional bear. This led teddy bear manufacturers in Europe to start making jointed bears again, this time for adults to play with rather than children.