Mount Olive native collects and creates too many dolls to count

By Kathy Grant Westbrook [email protected]

Seen here is a very small portion of the doll collection belonging to Pikeville resident and Mount Olive native Jane Jones.(Kathy Grant Westbrook|mountolivetribune.com)

If Jones were to try to pick a favorite doll from her extensive collection, she admits that this little guy would make the short list.(Kathy Grant Westbrook|mountolivetribune.com)

Prior to Jones’s TLC, this doll — a yard sale find — ‘looked terrible,’ she recalls.(Kathy Grant Westbrook|mountolivetribune.com)

Jones’s granddaughter, Carstin, was the inspiration for this doll.(Kathy Grant Westbrook|mountolivetribune.com)

Note the variety of realistic facial expressions on the Berenguer brand dolls along the back row.(Kathy Grant Westbrook|mountolivetribune.com)

The oldest doll in Jones’s collection is around 100 years old. It’s an Ella Cinders composition doll, made mostly of wood pulp and glue.(Kathy Grant Westbrook|mountolivetribune.com)

This is the most recent doll ‘reborn’ by Jones.(Kathy Grant Westbrook|mountolivetribune.com)

One of Jones’s many rescues, here is Charlie’s ‘before’ picture: he had significant age-related discoloration on his face and hand, in addition to having little hair left. Take a look at the following picture to see his transformation.(Jane Jones|Courtesy photo)

Charlie’s ‘after’ photo: having been reborn, he awaits just one finishing touch — his hair. Jones is trying to decide between rooting it or painting it on.(Jane Jones|Courtesy photo)

The details in Jones’s miniature dolls is extraordinary.(Kathy Grant Westbrook|mountolivetribune.com)

A palm-sized doll made from a mold by Jones; she also made his clothes and Boppy pillow, and crocheted his blanket.(Jane Jones|Courtesy photo)

Jones uses molds, polymer clay — and, most importantly, her imagination — to create her miniature dolls.(Kathy GrantWestbrook|mountolivetribune.com)

PIKEVILLE — Some might look at Jane Jones’ massive doll collection and think of the oft recited nursery rhyme about the old woman who lived in the shoe — she had so many children she didn’t know what to do.

Jones’ children aren’t real, but they are massive in number.

“I’ve always loved dolls. I’ve never outgrown ‘em from the time I was little,” Jones says, and a visit to her home in Pikeville quickly proves her statement is no exaggeration; in fact, it may be an understatement.

Jones, a Mount Olive native, collects and makes dolls, and devotes an entire room in her home to her hobby. Despite trying to keep her “babies,” as she calls them, corralled in one room, “they do kinda drift into the other part of the house,” she admits.

Her doll room is filled with shelves, cribs and cradles that display so many dolls that she’s given up trying to estimate how many she has. Plus, the number is constantly fluctuating: she frequently adds to her collection, and sometimes subtracts from it by giving dolls away or selling them; she has also donated a couple for fundraisers. Most don’t have names, because, Jones points out, there’s no way she could remember them all.

She retired four years ago from BB&T, after working in banking for 40 years. Her hobby started long before her retirement. In fact, the dolls from her childhood spurred her on to continue collecting, and about 30 years ago, she took the hobby a step further and started “reborning” dolls.

Jones explains that the term “reborning” came about when people started taking vinyl dolls — Berenguer brand dolls, specifically, as they were known for their realistic appearance — and enhancing their features to make them look even more lifelike. This involved stripping off the original paint before applying new paint, and eventually companies started producing kits of doll parts, providing dollmakers with a blank slate — or blank face, as it were — to start with.

“Reborning,” Jones explains, is now an all-encompassing term used to describe creating as realistic a doll as possible, whether from a kit or from an existing doll; she does both. She orders kits online, and finds dolls in need of rehabbing at thrift stores, flea markets and yard sales, often accompanied by her oldest niece and “traveling buddy,” Brenda Hesse. “One of my favorite things to do is to find one that’s in bad shape and fix ‘em up,” Jones says.

In some cases, Jones comes home with a doll that needs little more than a change of clothes (keeping an eye open for good deals on baby clothes is yet another aspect of her hobby), but in other instances, a doll requires many hours of detailed work before Jones is satisfied. With an older doll, one of the first steps involved is stripping away the original paint, using Winsor & Newton Brush Cleaner or acetone (fingernail polish remover).

Additionally, says Jones, “When they come with bruises and stuff” — the old vinyl often develops dark discolorations that really do resemble bruising — “you can put pimple cream on ‘em and lay ‘em out in the sunshine a few times, and it’ll usually fade it out.”

When it comes to painting her “babies” — creating the subtle but necessary variations in color that result in such a true-to-life look — Jones uses two different types of paint. She prefers heat-set paints, as they allow her to work slower and more methodically since they don’t dry until placed in the oven for a few minutes; this is what she always uses on the dolls she makes from kits. On older dolls, the vinyl differs from that produced today, so heat-set paints often aren’t an option, meaning she has to use air-dry paints instead, which, she notes, “frustrate me a little bit because it dries so fast.”

One of the most noticeable features on any doll is its hair, and Jones uses one of two methods for applying it. She sometimes paints it on, and even though this takes a long time, it’s still the faster of the two methods. The other involves rooting mohair into the vinyl head, using a needle that pushes in one or two strands at the time, a process that can take many hours.

For some people, the work involved in reborning a baby doll — the initial cleaning, the stripping of paint, the repeated applications of acne cream, the re-application of numerous layers of paint, the painstaking rooting of hair — well, it would approximate the pain of giving birth to an actual baby. Not so for Jones. She sets up a table in the center of her kitchen, under a bright light, and cheerfully goes to work on a doll. “I have my music going,” — she prefers rock ‘n’ roll — “and I get in my zone.”

An offshoot of her collecting and reborning baby dolls is her production of miniature dolls made of polymer clay. She uses molds to make the palm-sized dolls, and sometimes uses additional clay to sculpt their clothes and accessories; other times, she sews or crochets these items instead. Just like with her reborn babies, some of these dolls manage to look incredibly lifelike albeit on a very small scale. With other miniatures, however, Jones’s imagination leads her to a land of make-believe, where, among her teensy creations you’ll find an eclectic assortment that includes the Grinch, Frankenstein, a devil, a wood nymph, and Batman.

Inspiration for her miniatures comes from various sources. “Some things just come to me,” she says, while also noting that she gets ideas while browsing online at sites such as Etsy and Pinterest. Occasionally, an idea will come from someplace entirely unexpected. When she spotted two small bowls in a thrift store, patterned after a duck pushing an egg-shaped cart, Jones bought the bowls and crafted “duck babies” to rest inside them.

Whether it’s working with her miniatures or with her life-sized dolls, it’s something Jones always looks forward to. “It’s relaxing,” she explains. “I enjoy it, and then when you get through, you’ve got something to show for what you’ve done.”