Beth Cameron, working out of her picturesque studio in Oakmont, Pennsylvania, fashions appealing Santa figures that celebrate the warmth of the Christmas spirit. Her first Santa, made in the early 1970s, was a cloth European-style "gift giver" based on a store figure she had seen and couldn't afford. She said to herself, "I can make that," little realizing that what was to evolve into a long career of dollmaking had just begun. Her present-day Cernit Santas are roly-poly and red-cheeked, with expressive features that embody the fondest recollections of the kindly old gentleman. Cameron seeks to convey the wonder of Christmas as seen through the eyes of a grown-up who wishes to be a child again. Her Santa figures-while exceedingly complex, with myriad antique and handmade accessories-seem homespun in feeling. She likes to portray Santas at work, surrounded by toys for their sacks. "My favorite Santas can be said to reflect the work ethic," Cameron muses. "After all, what I do is make things. I spent my life in a workshop. For me the making is as important as the finished product. All the gathering I do, all the time spent making the piece is analogous to the building up to the excitement of Christmas Eve."

Cameron conjures up details for sheer delight, often inserting little surprises in her work. "I'll decorate the inside of a jacket; put a little pocket containing a toy in the lining of the back of the jacket (where no one would think to look), just to keep the new owners on their toes. Often costuming and accessorizing takes longer than sculpting the piece itself," Cameron reveals.

Cameron's tender portrayals are meant to become important Christmas traditions to be taken out each year as part of the holiday celebration. She wants each Santa to look as if he had been caught in midstep entering her living room. To achieve her goal, Cameron eschews doll stands, concentrating on the stance of the figure, including the way the arms are held and the position of her feet. Her face lights up as she recalls a scene in the Broadway show, Fiddler on the Roof, which she claims oddly enough greatly affected the making of her Santa figures. "When the father sings 'Tradition,' he lumbers onto the stage in his heavy boots; but as soon as he starts to dance, he moves with the grace of a much lighter man. I want the same sense of movement in my Santa figures." As Cameron works, her Santas become so real to her that she can almost hear the sleigh bells jingle.

While Cameron was working on the Tiffany Christmas window displays for the Boston store in the early 1990s, she felt a recurring urge to make a special Santa for each of her two daughters, Kate and Rachel. They had to be the most wonderful Santas she had ever made, and very personal. While Rachel's Santa was finished in what Cameron felt was a timely manner, Kate's Santa evolved slowly, over a period of three years. "I just couldn't get it right. I had such high expectations for it," Cameron remembers. "I wanted the face to embody the kind spirit of the holiday, to be the face of love that every parent has for their children. Finally, I made a decision. I told my daughters (who were beginning to wonder if the doll was ever going to be completed), "This is it!" I didn't put a mustache on him because I was afraid it would cover too much of his expression."

Cameron had kept several of Rachel's and Kate's dresses from when they were little. Now they could be recycled as frocks for the dolls nestled in Santa's arms, while material from Kate's school jumper looked just right as Santa's shirt. She delighted in using locks of hair saved from her own childhood days for the hair of one of the dolls. Even Cameron, who admits to being a perfectionist, agrees that Kate's Santa (plate 37) fulfills all of her family's expectations and will always be one of the highlights of Christmas.…

For most of her career Beth Cameron has been involved with portraying older gentlemen, often in the guise of Santa Claus (see "Holiday Inspirations"), and she is considered a master of creating older faces that bespeak tenderness and caring. At the time she began work on The Velveteen Rabbit (Plate 90), Cameron was concentrating on African American figures, prompted by her annoyance at stereotypical dolls she saw advertised in various magazines. "I said to myself," Cameron reveals, "that if I were an African American, I wouldn't want to be portrayed in this manner. I was convinced that I could do better, that I could make black dolls that were typical of anyone." During this period, at one of the antique doll shows she frequents on the lookout for props and accessories, Cameron found a velveteen rabbit, whose scruffy appearance she couldn't resist. "It must have been serendipity, because soon afterward I discovered an old copy of the storybook, The Velveteen Rabbit,, and I knew I had the 'anchors' for this piece that was slowly taking shape in my head. After looking at the rabbit again, I found him too stiff-so, I took most of the sawdust out of him. His patchy fur was just perfect: obviously a child had already 'loved' the fur off!"

Before Cameron picks up a tool, she conceptualizes the scene: "I knew I wanted a peaceful figure, one sitting to avoid the problem of a doll stand; so I thought he should be reading. I pictured a Sunday evening with a grandfather reading to his half-asleep granddaughter. He still wore his 'Sunday best,' but had taken his tie off and put on his slippers. When his granddaughter requested a story, he put aside his newspaper (headlined Portland, Maine, 1944) and his pipe. At first I had a different head on the grandfather-he was looking directly up, but then I wanted him to be half-asleep, as grandfathers often are as the stories lull them into a drowsy state; so I switched the head at the eleventh hour, and the whole piece came together!" Cameron finishes with a satisfied smile.

As Cameron works, she plans each detail with an eye to establishing the emotional credibility of the scene. In The Velveteen Rabbit, she so carefully sculpted the grandfather's feet that even the corns on his feet press against the soft slippers she made herself. While she found the little girl's crocheted slippers at an antique doll show, she hand-knitted the grandfather's sweater vest. Between the search and discovery phase and the actual time spent working on the piece, The Velveteen Rabbit, evolved over a year. When it was finished, it met Cameron's main objective of expressing the tender bond between generations.…