Forgotten Saints

dolls & holy cards

Hey all!

I’m so happy to announce that the project I’ve been working on for the last six months is finally ready to share.

The idea of making Saint dolls has been swirling in my brain for years~ sometimes at the front, sometimes at the back… sometimes sketches happen… then something else pops up. While sitting in the beautiful Morbid Anatomy Library, during my Dear Death show in 2023, I happened upon two books of collected Holy Cards… this started all of my gears twitching and the vision i had originally slowly started changing. I was originally thinking of making Catholic Saints because I have so many favorites with their wonderfully weird stories, but once I started thinking in terms of Holy Cards I knew these needed to be original Saints. (I may still make some legit Saints, just not now)

So, I started making Saints… and doing little else. I need a whole WORLD of Saints, I needed to be surrounded by Saints. And so they started coming to life on my workshop table. I knew who some of them were before I started, I knew what they looked like, I knew what their patronage was…like Saint Ludwig, who is the Patron Saint of the Language of Birds.

Saint Ludwig

Others, I discovered while I was in the middle of creating them, like Saint Ivrentine, who is the Patron Saint of Disembodied Voices. She and I sat together for a nice long while until I finally understood her and where she came from.

Saint Ivrentine

This process went on for several months, and little by little, my workshop wall became a lovely, comforting, home of Saints.

Once the dolls were all done and John and photographed them all,

Saint Dmitry, Patron Saint of Forgotten Stairwells has his moment.

it was time to put the cards together and have them printed. I sent them to ShuffledInk who printed them in Florida. I am absolutely thrilled with how they came out, they did an amazing job. The cards are 4 x 6 inches and are encased in a beautiful box

(the box cover)

These are all personal Saints for me, they all stem from and represent different parts of myself. Not intentionally, I didn’t really have a specific goal… I just wanted to make them.. and sort of mine my brain as they started to emerge, and that’s exactly what happened. Once they were all made and named I (and my family) began to see them as pieces of a large jana puzzle, which was really interesting. I’ve had a few people recently asking me about what inspires me, and I think how the Saint dolls developed is a perfect example. It’s a little bit of this and that… what I’m naturally interested in combined with circumstances, combined with just letting my brain wander, lots of time, lots of mulling, reading, watching films, looking at books, more mulling, and then sitting at my workbench just making things and seeing how they turn out.

And so now *deep, deep breath* *stretch my achey fingers* I have 52 Saint dolls and about 100 sets of cards who are ALMOST ready for my shop.

You can see them all and read a little about them, now on my website.

shop

All 52 dolls and sets of cards will be in my shop next Friday, January 31st at 10 am ET. I am doing this as part of Darksome’s Love You To Death Virtual Market. Which simply means, that if you enter my shop via Darksome website you will have access to a code to receive Free Shipping. The market page isn’t up yet, but I can give you a link to their main page, and send along a direct link to the market page next week. Darksome always hosts amazing artists and I want to encourage you to check them all out.

Each doll (with the exception of one ~below~ which is actually a set of two dolls) will cost $325.

Saint Abnetha and Saint Katja, Patron Saints of the Beauty of Decay are sisters and connected. They will cost $450 for the set.

cards

The boxed set of 52 Forgotten Saint holy cards will cost $50. I will be making the first 50 of the sets, signed and numbered, available to you folks on my mailing list on Thursday, January 30th at 12 pm ET. The remaining sets will be in my shop for the Darksome market.

I know this may all sound a little confusing, please feel free to reach out if you have any questions, either in the comments below or at my email: janachristy@gmail.com

ANATOMICA

Also!

Last April I started carving three anatomical dolls. I’ve made a number of these before and these were my favorite. I have a feeling I’m just getting a little better at carving each time, and also I’ve finally figured out a way to carve the tiny organs in such a way that they can fit neatly inside like a puzzle AND not fall out in a tumble if the coffin is hung. As of this minute, there is one doll, Marlena Anatomica, remaining in the Morbid Anatomy online shop, if anyone is interested. She hangs within a coffin made of salvaged wood. (The photos of the dolls were taken on a dark day and the light wasn’t perfect, sorry.)

So- I will send out a brief email next week with the Darksome link. Again, I’ve just thrown a lot of information at you- if you have questions, please reach out via the comments below or by email.

I hope you’re having a tolerable (not too cold, not too snowy, not too traumatized by the state of the world) kind of January.

x jana