Storytelling Transformed with Reversible Dolls

A local artist who brings fairy tales to life will be exhibiting her works this weekend at the Menlo Park Sidewalk Arts and Crafts Fall Fest.

Beth Karpas handcrafts dolls that transform the experience of how people learn classic stories. Her unique dolls shift shape to become part of that journey. And ultimately, she changes the way people learn to share fairy tales with their loved ones.

Karpas, a Mountain View resident, made her first doll at eight-years-old as part of a school project. And she hasn't stopped since. She continued developing her craft through her high school and college years and eventually turned to making it her profession over a decade ago.

Since then, she has made countless reversible dolls that transform from one famous story book character to another, such as Paul Bunyan into Babe the Blue Ox, or Beauty into the Beast. 

But in the years in between which she honed her doll making skills, she told stories as part of her job as a children's librarian. During that time period she would bring the dolls she made to help tell the stories to her audience. She soon realized that her unique fashion of dollmaking not only made the stories more popular, but she also had a built in audience to test the durability of her products.

Lo and behold, her dolls delighted those with whom she shared them.

"I contribute to the happiness economy," said Karpas, of the duties of her job.

At last count about five years ago, Karpas estimated she had made more than 2,000 dolls by herself. And as she has produced new dolls consistently since then, at this point she doesn't even dare to guess how many she's made.

Now matter how many, surely that is a lot of happiness she has generated.

And she has no shortage of inspiration to draw from. Karpas makes dolls based on stories from cultures across the globe, from the most recognized to the most obscure.

Each doll she makes comes along with a story book to tell the tale of the characters.

As a result, her dolls have been received universally. Karpas said she has shipped dolls from her Web site to people across the globe and now has at least one on each continent. Except Antarctica.

Though most people may imagine dolls to be only gifts for children, Karpas said her creations dispel that myth.

"The ones I make tend to go to anyone from 3 to 103 years old," she said.

But not only does she help teach new stories with her dolls, she also helps restore those fables that exist through old, damaged dolls. At her doll hospital, Karpas takes in dolls that are in need of repairs and gives them new life.

She said she mended a certain Raggedy Anne doll that had been repaired so many different times that the collective patchwork transformed the doll to look quite different from its different form. According to the doll's owner, its disfigured form became so severe that its look scared her children.

So Karpas restored the doll to resemble its classic look, and paid homage to its owner's extensive maintenance work by sewing on a patchwork heart.

She also creates dolls for customers who have a favorite fairy tale, and incorporates what future doll owner wants the it to look like.

And though she enjoys making the dolls, it's the reason for their creation that really draws Karpas into her craft.

"It's the stories," she said of what her favorite element of her job is.

Karpas said she is bringing about 200 dolls that can be bought from her booth in the Menlo Park Sidewalk Arts and Crafts Fall Fest.

The fair runs from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. beginning Friday and ending Sunday evening. People are invited to peruse the booths of nearly 100 different artists hailing from across California. Some of the arts shown will be photography, jewelry, photography, clothing, toys and many other varieties of crafts.