Colliii.com: Hi Ruth, almost a year has passed since you won a Colliii Award. What have you been doing this year?

Ruth: This year has been quite eventful and full of new ventures and changes. Sadly due to health issues my business partner Claire had to resign from her duties as Co. Director of the company, although I am very pleased to say she is still Reborning her beautiful babies. Claire's departure bought many changes in a short period of time.

I had to move the company to a new location, After many weeks of panic, hard work and sleepless nights, I decided to move to a large warehouse in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire. There were many reasons for choosing this location, but the three main reasons were; As a family run business, and being a military family, My husband Billy & I are more likely to move to this area after our six year tour of Germany ends in 2012, so moving the business to this location seemed sensible.
Also being closer to UK's largest doll show venue made sense, The Discover Dolls International doll show is located just five miles away from the unit. The final reason was I had found someone to fill the position of warehouse supervisor, Lisa Dawson has been involved in the Doll industry for 7 years and her experience and enthusiasm sealed the deal on moving to Peterborough. 

As an artist I have been concentrating on my sculpting. I feel very passionately that their is a real decline in the choice of OOAK sculptures available for collectors at the moment, it would be so nice to see more artists offering OOAK's for sale again, many sculpting artists are now only producing their work in other mediums such as vinyl and resin, which has bought a steep decline in the OOAK market. 

I am also pleased to announce I was given the wonderful opportunity of being the Featured Artist for the next issue of Discover Dolls Magazine, and have had the honor of being the first ever Artist to have two cover babies for the magazine, this is an achievement which I am extremely proud of. I had the cover baby of issue number 2 for my reborn babies, and now I have an OOAK cover with issue number 25.

Colliii.com: This year you are in the jury for the OOAK dolls. What kind of things will be looking for when voting on the dolls?

Ruth: I am very pleased to have been chosen to serve on the OOAK Jury.

I have always seen a divide in the style of OOAK dolls, some dolls are so realistic they can be a little freaky, whilst others are just beautiful dolls. There is nothing wrong with either style of doll providing it is sculpted to the highest standard. I will be looking for good proportions and the correct positioning of the dolls facial features. Although it can be difficult when just looking at photographs; there are ways to tell if the doll is smoothed properly and does not have any cracks or flaws. Basically I will be judging on the technical side of the sculpting as well as the presentation and over all appeal of the doll.

Colliii.com: The competition is very international. Can you tell where the artist comes from by the kind of doll they make?

Ruth: It is much more difficult to tell with OOAK's where the doll originates, the signs are much more evident in Reborn dolls, but not OOAK dolls.

Colliii.com: Simply Reborn bought a Colliii Award winning doll from Maribel Villanova and reproduced it as a kit. What effect can winning awards have on the success of a doll?

Ruth: I think winning an award can only have a positive effect, because as with any campaign to sell a product, the more exposure and advertising it receives the better it will sell. We purchased both of Maribels Colliii dolls. Analisa was the larger of the two and has sold extremely well since her release. Lucinda was a newborn sized baby and has seen much success as have all the dolls we have produced that have been sculpted by Maribel.
I would encourage all sculpting artists to enter the Colliii Awards, As I previously mentioned their is a distinct lack of OOAK artists offering their work as OOAK dolls. The exposure you can get from entering such a contest can only be positive.

Colliii.com: What kind of things have you got planned for the rest of this year?

Ruth: I have an eventful year planned.
I will be exhibiting at the Discover Dolls show in August and October. Although I will be there mainly as Simply Reborn with our kits, for the show in October I will be exhibiting my OOAK dolls also. I will be offering my OOAK sculpts for sale on a regular basis this year.
I have also recently teamed up with Tina Kewy to release two doll kits through Simply Reborn, the heads are sculpted by myself and the Limbs are sculpted by Tina, these will be available for pre order later this year.
I am currently working on a new range of Independent Artist vinyl kits, This range is called "Precious Dreams Preemie's" and all the kits are limited to just 300 kits are are scale preemie babies ranging from 26 - 36 week Gestation, I have just released the photographs of my premier kit called "First Love" and the orders have been flooding in. http://www.preciousdreams.co.uk/firstlove.htm
I am very excited about the year ahead, I hope it will be very successful for me as a sculpting artist.