Ophelia and Shelley's Omukae Ceremony

These are images from the omukae ceremony that I held for Ophelia and Shelley, my Dream of Doll Tender Bee-a and Too, on December 6, 2006, close to their second birthday.

The omukae, or welcoming, ceremony is a ceremony designed by the ball-jointed doll company Volks to introduce new Volks dolls to their owners in a special way. I learned about the ceremony by reading threads and viewing images on the site Den of Angels. From what I can tell, Volks uses music, recitation, candles, and flowers in their omukae ceremonies.

I created a ceremonial photo shoot with Ophelia and Shelley using candles, evergreen branches, and tiny flowers. The photos were taken at night with artificial lighting.

Taken with my Palm Treo 600.

MUTABILITY.
Percy Bysshe Shelley

We are as clouds that veil the midnight moon;
How restlessly they speed, and gleam, and quiver,
Streaking the darkness radiantly!--yet soon
Night closes round, and they are lost for ever:

Or like forgotten lyres, whose dissonant strings
Give various response to each varying blast,
To whose frail frame no second motion brings
One mood or modulation like the last.

We rest.--A dream has power to poison sleep;
We rise.--One wandering thought pollutes the day;
We feel, conceive or reason, laugh or weep;
Embrace fond woe, or cast our cares away:

It is the same!--For, be it joy or sorrow,
The path of its departure still is free:
Man's yesterday may ne'er be like his morrow;
Nought may endure but Mutability.

A picture I took of them the following day, in daylight.

Comments

Courtney, sun-bathing

Fanchon

I can't believe it. It looks like the rusted gates to The Garden of Virtues are going to be laboriously parted by small articulated resin hands after all once more. I am glad that I am buying Lanie's Angel, but I am also a little sad. I remember disposing of Dresden along with my other dolls. I was in a vicious rage. I hesitated over Dresden's prone form, thinking, goodness, even I don't think of her as a BJD, is this really necessary? And then, blindly, cutting the strings. I can't believe I am actually talking about this now. I have not talked about it before. I regretted losing her afterward, because I did not really need to part with her. She was a sweet, special presence, a little woman. I have kept all of her eyes, wigs and clothes. Of course I will never forget the moments in which I divested all of my BJD's of their clothing, wigs and eyes. The other day Henry came around with a little velcro he had found and I grew faint, knowing that it had come fro...

It was 1846.

"The wind was hard and fast, howling against the immovable keep. Within lights glowed. Like beacons the panes of illuminated glass dazzled my eyes, so cold I thought surely they had frozen open. I knew not myself. I knew not my hands, which hung as exanimate wraiths from my arms. My clothes, dull rags, twisted around me, and it seemed they made no difference against the ice and the wind. I felt myself drawn into the warmth of the keep. I was past gratitude-nay, not past-but I knew that I had been reduced to a bestial state. I was too ashamed of myself and my imposition to look my benefactor in the face." It was thus that we found "Caroline." I saw her in the St. Vincent de Paul resale shop and was captivated by her forlorn looks. I gathered her limp body in my arms, and Leslie and I brought her home. In the sewing room I removed her wig, dismantled her limbs, and after eyeing her stuffing decided to discard it along with the wig. I took her body pieces ap...

A Garden of Virtues

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