The naming of things is both difficult, important and occasionally accidental.
I just delivered a wedding card to an old friend, universally known as Pog. This is not the name he was christened at all, it’s the name his sister could manage to say when he was born.
Next door’s cat, who comes to greet me every morning, has been through quite a few name changes, simplified until she got to a name everyone could remember. I call her Hello and she squeaks back.
Our first and longest loved cat was called Minky, which was in itself a mispronunciation of monkey. In one of the Peter Sellers Pink Panther films a monkey is misbehaving and he exclaims in Franglais : Er, you noty Minky!
When she arrived Minky was very naughty and a bit wild. There was a black cat ornament, about the same size as she was, on the windowsill, but not for long. She settled in and we loved her for just over nineteen wonderful years. I miss that cat.
I watch the TV programme, Long Lost Family about adopted and abandoned people, reunited with their families, sometimes finding the name of their mother or family members for the first time. Sometimes their own original name. I am both left and adopted and didn’t find out my original name for many years. My adoptive mother kept it to herself. I am called Jane after my adoptive mother’s mother. As I loved her, I was happy with that name. My adoptive mother also gave me a middle name and then taunted me with it. She called me Louise, a name I hate because she used to call me, actually shouting : Louweeliwogs. She thought this was funny because she knew I was half Italian and it was a racial slur. I of course, did not know and just knew I was being made fun of, rudely.
Having been a teacher I am as hot on people being called by the name they prefer as I am on people not being called by racist, sexist, ageist or any other intentionally derogatory epithets.
When you have been a teacher and met a lot of children with a lot of names, you form associations with certain names which precludes you calling your own child by any of them. I went through about three baby names books when I was pregnant.
If you have a lot of children you will be resorting to Decimus when pregnant for the ninth time.
If you are a doll maker, who has made hundreds of dolls, what do you do? I don’t name the dolls, that’s up to the collector but I do have to have a name to write on the moulds. Sometimes dolls will have up to five moulds to make all the parts for the doll and I have to call them something
To long time readers (hello!) this is a familiar photograph a few weeks before Miniatura.
I have spent a week of twelve hour days pouring porcelain into the new moulds and here is the dining table full of the results. As you can see each tray has a label. If you are sharp eyed you’ll have noticed the accidental name in the middle tray.
Here it is in close up. As you can see I have made a mould for a 24th scale lady who I have modelled and moulded two different heads for.
By the time I have spent days and days on my hind legs pouring and trying hard to get the right bits in the right tray and muttering to myself each time I demould to tell myself where to put it, as it were, the name has stuck.
Whatever she is called she will always be Lady Two Heads to me. If you buy her you can call her what you like. I would give you a hint and some suggestions but until she has been rubbed down and spent time in the kiln I won’t know if she works.
There are four dodgy dolls. Because I am attempting to do fourteen part 24th scale dolls I have had to use very fine wire to make the stringing hooks. It has to be fine to poke up into the thin hollow legs and hold the resin elastic that strings the doll. It is 32 SWG wire. That’s 32 Standard Wire Gauge, which is about the thickness of a hair. You can see the little loops poking out of the feet. Will they hold as the porcelain shrinks? Have I made the ends wiggly enough? Are they strong enough, once fired, to hold the elastic?
I have no one to ask because I doubt anyone else has tried this. As Miniatures scale down, the tools and materials have to keep up. The only way to find out if they will do it is to have a go.
Stay tuned. Keep an eye on Lady Two Heads and she’ll keep four on you.
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