Sculptor makes dolls of babies that died

Cathy Resmer created an audio slideshow about sculptor Jennifer Stocks-Dearborn's "memorial dolls."

It features Jennifer Stocks-Dearborn, a Jefforsonville sculptor who makes realistic clay babies for people whose infants have died. Her own daughter died of SIDS in 2000. Leon Thompson wrote a story about her for this week's paper, but I thought we could do more with the images of the dolls. Stocks-Dearborn refers to them as "creepy, naked babies," and they are indeed creepy. And also beautiful. And sad.

Link

[#1 posted by pimpbot23 , July 26, 2008 1:34 AM]

As a former practitioner in the medical field who has seen more than my share of preemies (real ones), I am unavoidably creeped out by these things, not to mention the people who buy them. I've read the other discussions about people having their cars busted into by cops who thought that their little surrogates were real babies and wondered how the hell they could not know that somebody would try and break in and 'save' the little human larva in peril. But I suppose if these women were crazy enough to think these rubber ringers were cute, they would be ditzy enough to leave them on the seat. Just as well they DON'T have any real ones ( I hope ).

On the other hand, think about how useful an ultra-realistic 'reborn' could be as a social engineering tool. How many interesting 'experiments' could we invent where a stiff preemie, perhaps with a little blue rouge, could trigger a reaction in the already borderline hysterical? I may be sick, but I didn't spend hours and hours in my den perfecting the art of dead baby 'reborning' as a home-based business. I'm just encouraging others to use their imaginations in developing creative alternative uses for little horrors that already exist. They're just dolls, even though a step or two away from taxidermy.