It must have been 2001. I had gotten a studio in Seattle above the old Vogue dance club and the room was a disaster. I fixed it up and put paintings on the wall. This was a major improvement because I had all my paintings on my little studio walls and the smell of turpentine and linseed oil was kinda intense.

My painting practice involved putting super thick paint on canvas and building up layers until I didn’t hate it. The oil paint would take weeks to dry so there was time.

While waiting, I started turning thrifted prom dresses and other garments into little misery dolls. I would make them look pathetic and sad. They became super popular. I never sold a painting, but I sold every single one of the misery dolls. At some point, it was clear I could go into production and folks started offering investment and connections to Chinese doll manufacturing. I waffled on this, feeling out of my league for a long time. Then Ugly dolls came out and I felt like they had taken the whole space from my Misery Doll project and so I moved on to other mediums.

The great thing is that these sad misery dolls really resonated with sad people and gave them comfort. Lots of personality. I guess I made maybe 150 of these dolls.