Doll Making as a Transformative Process, the online learning experience: Pamela Hastings is a noted doll maker, designer, and writer, who has gathered information and samples of artwork from 24 participants for her ground-breaking book on the use of doll making to change lives and perhaps even influence the course of world events. 

Dolls have been used throughout history as repositories for intense feeling, hopes, and aspirations. Because the forms can be simple and primitive, this medium is less intimidating than making paintings or talking, but still very effective as an expression for deeply-held feelings, healing thoughts, and as a way of working through past traumas and hurts.

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Going from a flat piece of fabric, step-by-step, to designing your own forms, with an emphasis on the more abstract/Art/Healing doll rather than the totally realistic. The class will also cover doing doll making with found objects.

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Hot Flash: A Celebration An online learning experience, using simple cloth, paper, and mixed media projects to re-discover dreams and make plans to realize them. Women of all ages will enjoy playing together to build our Nemisis, Guardian Angel, Superior Self...and let off al little steam in the process...You'll Laugh, you'll Cry, you'll want to share with your friends!

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HOT FLASH CLASS: Hot Flash, a Celebration, the online learning experience: Pamela Hastings is a noted doll maker, artist, and writer, who has gathered stories and samples of art work from 50 participants from all over the world for her celebration of Womanhood with our triumphs and challenges.
Sisterhood is Powerful, half the world is women, and we are never too old...or too young...to enjoy what we've accomplished and set our sights on higher goals.

Aspirations and Transformations are key words, as we have the opportunity at this stage of life...wherever we may be in years...to re-invent ourselves, just as we did endlessly as adolescents, but with Lots more experience (and maybe even wisdom) to bring to the project. Isn't this what we've always dreamed of? One of the first exercises will be to let our minds roam freely, to re-discover the dreams we've always dreamed, dust them off, and see if they still fit, or tailor them to suit the selves we are now.

Pamela will be leading an online learning experience Hot Flash: a Celebration, at www.healingandtransformativedoll.com, in 2011 (TBA), cost is $85 for six sessions. This class will allow participants to explore your own history and plans more deeply, using cloth and paper dolls and examples not in the book, and with regular email discussions with Pamela and each other during the process. You may use the class to explore personal issues and plans or to simply play with different mixed media forms. Go as deeply or as lightly as you like, with as much or as little interaction as is comfortable for you. This experience will also be valuable for teachers and art therapists, giving you a new vocabulary of simple-to-make projects. Each of the six sessions will give you both cloth and paper/mixed media projects. In this version of  HOT FLASH we CELEBRATE all the potential inherent in being women.