More than 40 years ago, just after her first child was born, Akira Blount found herself fashioning peculiar stuffed toys from old socks for the boy’s amusement. Thanks to the needlework skills taught her by her grandmother when she was growing up in Wisconsin, making the toys was a restful and creative endeavor. “But pretty soon I found myself wanting to make them for myself,” Akira says. “It was a fun and satisfying activity with endless possibilities.” The creative possibilities were so satisfying that Akira has built a respected career around sculptural figures that have progressed far beyond dolls or toys, unusual and deeply affective artifacts that seem to combine the innocence of childhood with the wisdom of later years. “I find that the figures touch the viewer in many ways, and that it’s the viewer who imbues them with a range of emotion,” Akira notes. “I enjoy that about my work, that they speak to people in a singular way that often has little to do with my own intention.”
A decade after she began making her dolls, during which she discovered that others found them as fascinating as she did, Akira moved with her husband Larry, who works in wood, to 80 rural acres in eastern Tennessee, less than two hours from Asheville. In the coming years, Akira’s dolls would evolve into true sculptural art, so that today her work is collected internationally and is included in the permanent collections of the Musée des Arts Decoratif in Paris, the White House Collection of American Craft in Washington, and the Clinton Library in Little Rock, Arkansas. She’s been featured in more than 30 articles in nearly as many magazines, and maintains an active teaching schedule at crafts schools around the country.
The move to more pastoral surroundings was motivated by Akira’s keen attachment to the natural world as an inspiration for her art, in which found objects from her home’s surrounding woods find their way into her work, from leaves to bits of wood, pebbles and roots. “The energy and beauty of nature has always sustained me,” Akira says. “And my love of natural materials has led me to explore how I might personify the spirit of nature in images of her playful, creative forces.”
Fashioned from stuffed fabric, the figures are characterized by permanently attached pieces which the artist terms “surface decoration,” rather than clothing — intricately detailed sewn leather, for example, or a tasseled cloth hat. “I don’t relate to the idea of ‘wardrobe.’ Rather, I see the dolls as collages of materials that I love and that I enjoy working with,” Akira says. “The figure may appear clothed, but the idea of clothing isn’t primary.” A number of the dolls feature a clay bird perched on a shoulder, part guardian and part confidant, and some figures hold, or sit on, wooden accessories fashioned by Akira’s husband, with whom she collaborates on creating the figures.
The dolls’ most haunting features are their faces, hand-sewn from cotton fabric with stitched detail accented with colored pencil. Equally important is the figure’s posture. “People seem to need to relate to that expression from their own personal experience,” Akira says, “and the posture of the figure must follow and relate to the facial expression.”
All of which only partly explains the mysterious allure of her growing population of figures, with their beatific expressions and often whimsical adornment. They carry themselves proudly, calmly and confidently, like a small army of enlightened beings, supremely self-assured tokens of human aspiration. Their humanity reminds us that we, too, are made from nature; their serenity encourages us to reach for higher planes of awareness.
“My work has changed dramatically over the years,” Akira says. “It’s moved from a toy-like object to a work that’s much more sculptural in nature. To me, the dolls embody the spirit of the materials they are made from, and reference the peace and tranquility of the natural world. I’m peaceful when I make them, and they reflect my inner peace.”
The Ariel Gallery, 19 Biltmore Avenue, Asheville, exclusively represents Akira Blount’s work. Visitwww.arielcraftgallery.com or call 828-236-2660. Akira’s dolls are viewable online at akirastudios.com.