Doll Head Gate!

A couple of years ago my husband Josh built this Doll Head Gate, as a unique installation of motion-sensor lighting. The doll faces and sculpted ornamentation include wired electrical so that the eyes light up when motion is detected.

Recently, Casa Sugar did a fantastic write-up on the gate, and I was just so proud, I had to share the news with you.



Here's the story... (in Josh's words)

My friend Bob did not have a fence separating the front from the back yard. Consequently, people began to help themselves to bicycles and other fun stuff kept around back. At the same time, my cousin across town had torn down a patio cover, and had salvaged the beams, and a few joists. It was also the month of "Neighborhood Clean-up", a city funded program where one throws this years junk in the street and the City hauls it away. That's where the gates came from. And the baby heads? Huge bins of baby heads at Berkeley Re-Use. It was my first time there. Got some cool X-Ray's too.



The basic structure of the archway was easy. I put more effort into the heads. The back of each head was carefully removed, and the face was mounted to a plaque, in the spirit of a big game trophy. I tried to mount each head according to it's position on the horizontal beam so that each would be looking at a pedestrian coming up the center of the drive. This was important because the eyes of each head are lit and triggered by a motion detector.



I spent a little time enhancing some of the heads in other ways. I created a "ring-leader baby head" with handlebar mustache and top hat (made from a frosting container), and a "Baby T", with mohawk and side-burns (no mustache). Everything was finished with flat white for that shabby-chic touch of elegance.

Thanks to Casa Sugar for their writeup.
Read it here!

You can see more of my husband's design + construction projects here.

(We live a couple hundred miles from the gate, so I rarely get to see it. I shot these photographs on a lovely Autumn morning, and hang the doll-face photos in my home when the season approaches. I love to celebrate the change in season with a rotation of artwork!)