Teri Kennedy Creates Art Dolls

Teri Kennedy lived another life before she began making art 12 years ago.

The Springs artist known for her whimsical and thought provoking art dolls once worked in Manhattan’s corporate world running large account customer service for MCI. She and her husband Kevin retired to the East End full time in 1998, and before long Kennedy tried her hand at painting.

She began with portraits and figurative work using watercolor, acrylic and eventually oil pastel, but it was collage and then found objects that really captured Kennedy’s imagination. “I got curious about collage,” Kennedy said, explaining that she took a collage workshop with sculptor Dennis Leri.

Kennedy enjoyed Leari’s small workshop so much she took a second one, and it was there she really found her stride. “Pretty soon he had me building things,” she said, adding, “I got the found object craze.” From her work with found objects, Kennedy forged a path to creating the art dolls she continues to make today.

“As an artist you find you’re in a vacuum, then you look over your shoulder and see someone else is doing it,” Kennedy said, noting that she first discovered that there was an art doll movement after picking up an issue of Art Doll Quarterly at the now defunct Borders Books in Riverhead.

Kennedy’s dolls are varied in their look and approach, but all of them are well considered and finely crafted pieces that ask the viewer to spend time absorbing their aesthetic beauty and the process through which they are created. Despite their numerous parts, the artist said she likes to create interesting shapes and preserve simplicity of line with her dolls. “I love negative space,” Kennedy said.

The sculptor tends to create a series of dolls before moving on to something new, but each series has its own look and feel. Some pieces look like actual dolls or exist within the framework of a box, while others maintain a deceptively simple design, such as a head sitting atop an antique chair leg.

No matter what she uses, Kennedy said she has strict rules about defining a found object. “It’s never retail,” she said, explaining that her materials are never purchased new. The objects in her studio are often gifts from friends or they’re purchased from yard sales and the occasional thrift store. Kennedy said the East Hampton Dump’s Home Exchange held a “treasure trove” of goodies before it was shut down.

Kennedy said she is usually drawn to certain things at different times. “That’s an evolving thing,” she said, pointing out that she might obsess over wooden blocks one week, and rusty metal another. “I use a lot of paper too, I love paper,” Kennedy said.

No matter what material she uses, Kennedy always alters it and makes it her own, and she frequently experiments with new paints, glues and materials.

Currently, Kennedy is reorganizing and “purging” her studio of old objects and materials. “You have to keep doing that,” she said. “As the work changes, you have to keep your space relevant,” Kennedy added.

Kennedy has shown her work in numerous exhibitions at Ashawagh Hall in Springs, as well as The Surface Library in Springs and Art Sites in Riverhead. Her latest dolls were displayed in the Body of Work group show at Ashawagh Hall on Oct. 22 and 23. The exhibition was Kennedy’s first with the Body of Work group of figurative artists, which shows together several times each year.

Kennedy also writes poetry and organizes readings at Ashawagh Hall whenever she’s able. She calls the readings the Poetry and Performance Series.