Resin Life: Snapshots of Asian Ball-Jointed Dolls

The first time I saw an Asian Ball-Jointed Doll (BJD) was five or six years ago. At the time I was in the throes of an obsession with the dolls of my childhood, the Pre-Barbie high-heeled fashion ladies. After buying every version of these vintage dolls I could find on ebay, I started sewing replacement clothes for them and selling them on my "Catzilla" auctions. The dolls were posed in complicated photo-stories, which to me was the main point, not the actual selling of the clothes.

One of my online friends in the vintage doll community suddenly got excited over something new - Asian ball-jointed dolls that could only be purchased through a Japanese website (which was not in English). I followed her link to the site and was frankly... not interested. The dolls came in a zillion pieces that had to be strung together, and their bald, unpainted, eyeless faces looked alien and a bit scary.

Fast forward to December, 2006. My daughter's friend mentioned that he had seen some bizarre dolls in a magazine, mistaking them for real people. I knew exactly what he was talking about. Having given up my vintage obsession, I needed a new one. I hopped right onto ebay and found a "reasonable" candidate, a 60 cm Obitsu body with a Gretal head.

She arrived put together, but eyeless, hairless, and without a "face-up", the correct term for the face paint that defines their eyes, lips, and cheeks. Although this book is entitled Resin Life, it's a bit of a misnomer, because my first doll was actually vinyl. My next dolls would be resin — more expensive, more delicate, and more temperamental in posing. There is a whole controversy of resin vs. vinyl which I will skip here. I like them both, for different reasons.

I was not planning on having more than one doll. But she needed a consort, and within a month or so a 60cm resin boy arrived. And then, my daughter's friend bought a 44 cm resin doll, known as a "mini", and of course I had to have one. And then.. another one, and another one. Now I have over a dozen vinyl and resin, in sizes ranging from 15 cm to 60 cm.

I don't pretend to be a photographer. My training is as a fine artist, and I use photography here simply as a medium. Nor is this book presented as any kind of definitive tome on Asian Ball-Jointed Dolls. It is simply a series of random snapshots of the dolls in their daily lives. It is meant to be looked at as if you had picked up the family photo album of a friend.

I usually take a doll with me when I travel. The photographs in this book were taken on the North Coast of California, the Olympic Peninsula of Washington state, San Francisco and Seattle, and even Tahiti. I do get the occasional odd look as I travel around with my dolls.

It's funny how people can collect model trains, or set up entire tiny battlefields and that is acceptable, while a grown woman (or man) with dolls is often sneered at. But dolls, trains, or toy soldiers, they're all toys, and they all reflect a fascination with life in miniature.

People collect dolls for a variety of reasons. A doll may be a surrogate child or a companion. It may pose for an artist (in fact, the urban lore about these dolls is that they were originally used as models for anime and manga artists), or be used to display miniature costumes or fashions. Dolls are used as 3-D characters in virtual communities, in cosplaying, and in therapeutic role-playing.

I hope you enjoy these snapshots. If you feel the urge to get yourself one of these fascinating dolls, consider yourself fore-warned: they are very addictive!