Bears-Direct - Teddy Bear Artist Spotlight

Artist Spotlight
Mary Dowd
Mary Dowd Bears

Hello bear lovers and welcome to yet another interview with a bear artist who loves to create our friends of yesteryear. Those wonderful creations that look as if they have so many secrets to share.

Once again I cross the seas from Australia to America and this time I am talking to Mary Dowd of Mary Dowd bears about her art and her wonderful oldie bears.

Mary Dowd was born and grew up in Buffalo, New York and although she has made her home in North Carolina which she loves, western New York will always be home as that is where her family and her heart remains.

Mary has always sewn and from a small child she could be found making dolls clothes and stuffed toys. Her mother was a beautiful seamstress and Mary feels she gained her love of fabrics and fabric art from her early influence. She clearly remembers that when she ran out of fabric her dollies were dressed in paper towels. How many of us can remember that? It was a big part of childhood to share fabrics with Mum wasn't it?

In 1994 Mary discovered that a friend was making bears and this friend kindly gave Mary her very first piece of mohair and some old fashioned advice of how to get started making a bear. That was it according to Mary - she was hooked and she has never looked back since. Bears have all but taken over her home and life.

The name Mary Dowd bears almost came about by accident says Mary. She started out calling her business Emgee Enterprises - "Emgee" was a college nickname for her initials "M.G." But some of the shops she sold to thought the name sounded too much like a manufacturer as opposed to an individual. She actually attributes her "name change" to The Toy Shoppe, they always advertised her bears as "Mary Dowd Bears" so she followed the path of least resistance and started simply using her own name. Mary still has her bears featured in that shop and I spent some time on their site recently admiring the bears.

As a part time bear artist Mary has another important and caring profession as a physical therapist. She has worked as a LPT since graduating from college in 1972 and for the past 13 years she has been working with handicapped children in a public school setting." I LOVE making bears, but I also really enjoy being a pediatric PT "she says. "Working for a school system allows the best of both worlds - my PT work schedule follows the 10-month school year and I have all the same holidays as my children. It also affords more time for sewing and creating than my past jobs with hospitals and rehab centers." Lucky Mary to be able to combine her two loves of profession with her very favorite one as a Mum.

Although Mary loves every part of making a bear she often is reluctant to start to stuff a head as she feels she really " has to be in the mood". She may sew several bears before she is ready to stuff the heads BUT once she starts she can not stop until the bear is completed and she eagerly awaits yet another little creature to love.

Mary works primarily with mohair and at the moment she is working on a special edition for a customer - making a bear from a pair of old hunting pants that had belonged to the collector's father. This "Pants Bear" has turned out very sweet and old fashioned looking as he has no hair and Mary thinks she may venture into using more vintage materials, as the results with this bear have been very gratifying.

She prefers the 12" -16" size bears but she has gone down as far as a 7" high bear and has been known to make the odd BIG bear too. Isn,t this bear stunning and doesn,t he look as if he has lots of love to share?

Mary has sold many bears from her web site and has made many friends over the net. Although she can only attend four to five shows a year she looks forward to the day when family commitments allow her travel further afield than the local shows she attends now. Mary loves the look on the face of collectors when they see the bear they want to take home and the camaraderie of shows whilst making new friends with like-minded people. I have to say that one of my favorite aspects of shows is meeting all my friends and making new ones.

Mary loves and creates many styles of bears but her heart, like mine, belongs with the old bears. She lovingly dyes them with tea and coffee, plucks out the fur and uses fabric pens to create the old look BUT Mary feels that some of the newer mohairs really lend themselves to the old look and need little help to make them look authentic.

As soon as I look at some of the sparse matted mohairs, I can see an old bear staring back at me, cant you?

These newer fabrics make it so much easier to create the authentic look of an old bear and I guess it will make it even harder to pick a fake too and that is a definite down side of the trend. When looking for an antique bear we will all have to look even harder now to make sure the bear we are buying is the age we think he is.

Mary is also an avid collector of bears and she feels that making bears has only increased her need to collect. Although she doesn't feel any particular designer of yesteryear had influenced her she eagerly reads each and every book on old bears she can find, pouring over the pictures.

Her favorite artists include Diane Kennedy (Wee Scone) Christine Pike, Kate Berlin,

Janice Woodard, Kathy Wallace, Eva Baldwin and the list could go on and on and on as each bear she has is a real favorite.

Mary thinks that she started making old looking bears when the price of antique bears rose so high. She wanted the look of yesteryear without the high price tag and so decided to create her own replicas. Aren't these bears beautiful and they recreate yesteryear so well? I'm sure they could happily sit with their older friends and look perfect.

It never ceases to amaze me that the toy or plaything that was bought for a child so many years ago has become so expensive and who would have thought that a little child's teddy would need to carry its own insurance policy?

Married to a horse trainer and breeder of thoroughbreds and mum to 2 teenagers, Meghan and Patrick keep Mary busy, and although her family are not collectors they certainly are very proud of her beautiful work and they are always there to offer advice and choose favorites.

Although Mary is an accomplished rider herself she rarely has time to pursue this interest any more BUT she does make time to be " Mum" to Golden Retriever Sasha, grey tabby Kit Kat, Bouncer the miniature horse and newest edition Lady - a little stray waif who has found a loving home! My goodness does this lady ever sleep?

" I think my husband is happy that I am making a product to sell instead of "more clothes??!!" says Mary." When we moved to this farm, a little over two years ago, he helped set up my "in-home space" for sewing and also displaying my "collecting habit" - bears and antique dolls. Of course, the bears do have a tendency to reside in all areas of the house - I don't think I have totally bearless room in my house!" she says.

How many of us can say we have a bear less room � unless it's the bathroom I guess LOL.

Mary has many ambitions in her art, to continue to design and try new ideas and techniques and continue to grow as an artist. She loves " tweaking " her patterns in the search for the perfect bear that may be around the corner don't we all? I think she may be very close to that illusive " perfect bear" and I will certainly be book marking her site.

Thank you so much Mary for talking to me and sharing your life and bears with Bears Direct.

If you would like to see more of Mary's beautiful bears please go to her site at http://www.yadtel.net/~mgdowd

You really will be in for a treat.