It’s always a ‘doll’ moment when you love what you’re doing

My Uncle Edward, who has an eagle eye for the most interesting news reads, recently pointed out to me an article he read in the New York Daily News online edition, about a Philippine-born portrait artist in Anaheim, California whose fame is spreading because of a unique talent. Noel Cruz repaints the faces of mass-produced celebrity dolls and makes them look almost like the real thing.

Dolls, especially those created in the era of Barbie (who was “born” more than 50 years ago), are perfect creatures fashioned by the most imaginative gods on earth. Cruz aims to make these dolls an exquisite replica of their celebrity look-alikes. 

According to the New York Daily News article penned by Victoria Taylor, Cruz “removes the existing paint on the face of each doll, which gives him a blank canvas. With patience, a steady hand and careful attention to detail, he gives them a lifelike facelift so there is no question whose doll it is.”

This is how Cruz describes the art of repainting:

“Repaint is a new form of pop art, wherein the doll’s face is treated like a three-dimensional canvas, with the added challenge of painting within a very small area. Since dolls are basically miniature pieces, brush strokes and shading have to be very controlled and precise,” Cruz shares.

According to published sources, Cruz grew up poor and was already 12 years old in 1974 when he first watched television. Among the very first telecasts he watched was of the Miss Universe beauty pageant and he was smitten by its parade of beauties. It isn’t unlikely his desire to reproduce beautiful images with his paintbrush was born as Bob Barker was introducing each doll-like contestant onstage.

But Cruz says the face that started it all was that of Lindsay Wagner of The Bionic Woman fame. He painted her image on dolls and eventually, he and his wife got to meet her.

A look at Cruz’s works reveals he has repainted dolls to the image and likeness of the late Princess Diana, Vivien Leigh (Scarlett O’Hara in the classic Gone with the Wind), Angelina Jolie, Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor, to name a few. He has done a few males, too.

(I have yet to find out if he has done a Cory or a Noynoy doll.)

“It’s about placing the features in the right place on the face,” he is quoted as saying by the Daily News. “The movements have to be very precise. If one little movement is off with your brush stroke, it is going to look funny.”

According to the same article, Cruz’s dolls “now fetch an average of $1,200 a pop, but they sometimes sell for a few thousand dollars more. He got $3,800 for one of his Cher dolls, and one of Charlie’s Angels star Kate Jackson was auctioned off on eBay for a whopping $5,100.”

Not bad for someone who was reportedly told by his relatives when he was growing up that he would amount to nothing with his passion for portrait painting. His parents actually wanted him to be an accountant.

Cruz’s fairy tale — for what can be more enchanting than the make-believe world of dolls — tells us that we should be where our passion lies, and go to where it leads us. Be it Math or magic, banking or baking, politics or portraiture. To be sure, passion isn’t the only ingredient to success, but when you love what you’re doing, you’re already many steps ahead.

You’ll never have a “dull” moment. 

***

I share his story because in a way, Cruz and I treaded the same career path and decided to take a detour. I myself was a Business Administration major in college, at a time when freedom of the press was just a dream. Editor of my high school paper, I had wanted to take up Journalism at the University of the Philippines but my parents suggested I take a “safer” course.

Accounting, Calculus and I were simply mismatched, like plaid and polka dots combined in one garment.

Seeing how unhappy I was (I had in fact gone for some career counseling and the counselor and I actually went over my UPCAT scores to see where my aptitude was highest. Of course, no one was surprised with the results.), my mother asked newspaperman Max V. Soliven when she chanced upon him in a party: “My daughter wants to take up Journalism but we are not encouraging her, because there is no freedom of the press in the Philippines.”

Soliven, who didn’t know me at the time but would later become my publisher, told my mom: “If your daughter wants to be a journalist, then let her. It won’t be long now and we will have freedom of the press.”

True enough, EDSA happened and we suddenly had 23 newspapers in the Philippines. And I am still writing for the STAR of them all.

(You may e-mail me at [email protected].)