I began making spirit dolls and talismans in October of 2022. Since then, I’ve created many dolls, focused primarily on honoring thresholds, carrying grief, heart healing, ancestral connection, death, and rebirth.

On the 3rd anniversary of stepping onto the path of the doll maker, over the 2025 Samhain portal, I felt called to reweave the vessel of my very first spirit doll. The Ancestor was a part of a course I took with Julia Inglis, which shaped the beginning of my several years long, self-guided doll-making apprenticeship.

Though that doll was incredibly special to me, her soft body had warped over time. I knew I would have to recreate her, and I grieved letting go of the old doll. Yet the process of reweaving turned out to be a gift. It invited me to create a doll that reflected more of my own artistry - rather than simply shaping a doll identical to the one that I was instructed to make during that course. It reminded me that the magic and the medicine of the doll - which I initially believed could only come when guided by a teacher - lies in my own breath, blood, bones, and spirit.

This seemingly small act of reworking and reweaving my very first doll was a profound moment in my ancestral practice, my evolution as an artist, and my journey as an intuitive. The gift of granting oneself permission - of self-trust, of allowing one’s own artistic expression to unfold - is powerful. It has rippled out into so many aspects of my life and is shaping my death work in ways that I have yet to fully comprehend.

Below is the rewoven ancestor doll - still in progress. Unlike the first doll (which was a simple doll of solid white wool), she wants to come alive with the colors and textures of my ancestors. Today she is sitting on my ancestor alar and waiting patiently for the next phase of her becoming.

We’ll both know when the time is right.