DURAND — Laurie Roy has been sculpting dolls for more than 20 years, but her brick-and-mortar dream felt a distance away.
The dream became reality for Roy on Thursday, who opened L.R. Design Studio The DollMakers Cottage in downtown Durand. The business opened with a ribbon-cutting and remarks from Durand officials.
Roy sculpts and molds silicone baby dolls, working out of her house and selling her products online. She also teaches classes in-person and virtually. She said the need for more room pushed her to look for a storefront.
“I sell them all around the world — to collectors, to film and media, and unpainted to other artists who paint them themselves. It’s a big business, and I needed to expand. I needed room,” she said. “This is the first time it’s been outside of the home. I’ve also been traveling and doing classes for many years, and now we’re bringing the classes here to my studio. So we’ll be teaching sculpting and doll painting.”
Roy said her and her husband, along with a few friends, have been working “non-stop” on the space since mid-July to renovate it to suit the business’ needs. One renovation included making a closet area into a cottage she designed from insulated foam.
“It needed pretty much everything — new flooring, painting, we built the cottage in the back, we put in the chandeliers, we put in new art stations, we built some shelves,” she said.
Roy wrote on Facebook that the business, located at 122 N. Saginaw St., will open on Monday after her and her husband take a “much-needed rest.” Roy said the business’ hours are to be determined as she’s finalizing details of her class schedule.
Laurie Roy said her interest in dolls stems from her childhood.
“My grandmother started a Barbie collection for me when I was little, so I loved Barbie, but also she took me to ceramic classes when I was little, and I used to paint porcelain dolls in the classes,” she said. “I always wanted to make my own, because I was painting someone else’s dolls. I always wanted to be the one to make the dolls.”
Roy said what first sparked her interest in sculpting dolls was when she saw unique dolls on eBay, similar to ones that her daughters owned.
“Twenty years ago, I was looking for dolls that looked like my daughters’, and I found these dolls called OOAK, and I realized they were one of a kind that people were sculpting out of dollmakers’ clay, and I was like, ‘I bet could do that.’ So I bought some clay, and my very first sculpture was a ‘cat lady’ — she was half-cat, half-woman — and I sold her for $35, and it was enough to buy more clay, so I could do it again. Now I’m selling my dolls for up to $6,500 apiece,” she said.
Roy said the process of scultping a doll from a ball of clay usually takes her about “four to six months,” because she’s working on mutliple dolls simultaneously. She estimated the process could take her four to five weeks if her sole focus was on one doll.
“I start with a dollmakers’ clay, and I build a wire armature and bulk it up with foil. I have sculpting stands that I hang it from, and then I start putting the clay on. I use wooden and metal tools to manipulate the clay and make it look like a baby, and then I bake it, sand it, and when it’s ready, make a mold of it. The mold is made out of silicone, and then I pour a different kind of silicone inside of it to make dolls,” she said.
Roy, along with her husband Todd Roy, said she moved from Washington this summer to be closer to family. Roy hails from Durand and is a Durand High School alumna, but her travels took her to South Korea, New York, Tennessee, the west side of Michigan and Washington before she returned to her hometown this summer.
“I lost my father a couple of years ago and our other parents are getting older, and we wanted to make sure that we were here for them,” she said.
Durand city officials, Candyce Wolsfeld, executive director of the Greater Durand Area Chamber of Commerce and vice president of the Durand Downtown Development Authority; Mayor Jeff Brands; and City Manager Cameron Horvath, attended the ribbon-cutting on Thursday, and were complimentary of Roy’s new shop.
“I’ve had a lot of fun working with (Roy) in the last few weeks, and in the last few months, and taking breaks from our jobs and getting to know (Roy). We’re so glad that you’re here,” she said.
“On behalf of the city council and the City of Durand, we’re so excited to have new business here. We feel like we’ve been making good progress, especially the last few years with the downtown and stuff that we’re doing. The store’s absolutely beautiful, and thank you so much for choosing Durand,” Horvath said.
“I’ve always been hoping we would get some unique stores, and this is pretty unique,” Brands said. “I think it’s going to bring people to Durand that have never even heard of us.”
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