A Handbag, A President, And A Russian Doll

In 2007 I started making things and selling them. Etsy was new and liberating. Some of my popular items were handbags made with acrylic handles, satin linings, and a clear, vinyl, outer shell with layers of fringe, made from laminated circles cut from magazine pages. The conceit was that they were Designer Handbags; I’d cull images from luxury brand ads in fashion magazines and make a pattern from them: Chanel, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, and the like. My pop homages were a fraction of the cost of a true It Bag and I only received one Cease and Desist.

At about this time, I was hawking these wares and other meta wearables at a craft fair when I was approached by a polished older woman who asked if I would be willing and able to make just such a bag using a photograph of Barack Obama and if I could have a sample for her within 48 hours. My kit was in another state but I convinced Kinkos to let me use their laminator, a friend to let me use her sewing machine, and I hit up the Home Depot for some cable ties and was able to deliver on time.

Other than her name, I had no idea who this woman was but took a chance on my hustle being worth the expense. Two years later we had sold 250 of the bags (I hand made every one and 40% of the gross went to the campaign) and the fabulous people sporting them included Oprah Winfrey, Judith Jamison, and Jaques D’Amboise. The formidable woman leading me through this process wore one of our Obama Bags to a private lunch she had with President Obama himself, after he’d won the election. She reported that he did a double take as she sat down with it and said, “Hey, that’s me!” She told me that he loved it. Mr. President asked that I make one for Mrs. Obama and Mrs. Obama asked that I make one to be entered into the National Archive.

In my making years, I was also selling one-of-a-kind nesting dolls. I’d decoupage magazine images onto raw wood matryoshka.

In 2011 I received a call from the Obama campaign asking if I’d be willing and able to make hundreds of sets of nesting dolls to be given as gifts during the President’s re-election campaign. The proposal had a stringent price-point and a codicil that the dolls be made entirely in the United States. I was given scantly more time than I had been to cobble together the first Obama Bag but I had a lot more knowledge of the possibilities. I sourced machines that can print on rounded surfaces (you should look these up; they are really cool) and compared the cost of such a machine with the labor required for fabricating the dolls with a paint brush and glue as I do myself. I would have bought the machine. The account wouldn’t have covered the purchase, nor my own labor but the posterity and the opportunity to be a part of the campaign were payment enough for my spirit.

The linden wood dolls that I work with come from Russia. I spent sleepless days tracking leads, in states all over the U.S., trying to find a woodworker who could make hundreds of the sets that I required and for, at most, double the cost of the dolls that I get from Russia. I couldn’t…find…anyone…to do it. I had to tell the president that I was unable to do the job. The disappointment was hard to swallow, but the taste of lost opportunity was soon cleansed by the disfluency of motherhood, when I had a son in 2013.

About a year ago I got a call from the polished and formidable hero of artists and presidents. In the time since we’d taken over the free world with our Bag, she’d helped Barack Obama get elected twice and championed the careers of Kehinde Wiley and Hank Willis Thomas. In the time since the Obama Bag I’d become the champion of a beautiful child and had lost my 18-hour days of making things. She wanted to know if I could make one more Obama Bag to be installed in the museum at the Barack Obama Presidential Center in Chicago. Yes I Can, I told her.

A few weeks ago someone messaged me on Instagram and asked if I was still making custom nesting dolls using other people’s family photos. I realized that I should be. My son can dress himself now and even make scrambled eggs. It seems a good time to make thoughtful gifts for loved ones, though, at the same time, it seems strange to think that not long ago democracy seemed stable enough for there to be whimsey in a presidential campaign. This client’s custom set for her husband as a gift for his 50th birthday will be ready in a few weeks and I have time to make some more in time for the holidays. If you send me some photographs of your brother or your bae or your boxer or your parents on their golden wedding anniversary, you can have what President Obama couldn’t. And I promise that, though the wooden blanks will be made in Russia and I can’t donate all my time and resources, I will continue to donate some of their profits to good people and good fights.

x Hally

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