Beacon artist brings fabric to life
Next month, dollmaker Erika Barratt will celebrate three years of bringing magic to all ages at her Beacon store, Hunca Munca’s.
The name of the shop, at 145 Main St., comes from a Beatrix Potter book, The Tale of Two Bad Mice, in which Hunca Munca and another mouse breaks into a dollhouse to steal furniture for their children.
Barratt stocks books, miniatures and wooden toys made by artisans in Europe or by smaller companies. A handmade dollhouse in the window is a popular draw.
Barratt says there are no age limits on having fun. “I get little kids coming in to buy tiny things, as well as adults in their 20s or 70s. When older people come into the shop, there seems to be a lot of nostalgia attached. The ‘Oh, I remember this from my childhood,’ ” she says.
Barratt, who grew up in Michigan, has worked with textiles since she was a child. She has a degree in textile fibers from Arizona State University and deals with companies such as West Elm and Anthropologie.
“I started out making rag dolls and little sculptural animals,” she says. “While I was doing that, I was designing a holiday ornament collection for West Elm with super cool animals. They produced them for about four years. Around the time that we were finishing that up, I had just moved to Beacon” from Brooklyn, where she shared a studio with other artists.
“I didn’t know too many people who were working with textile art,” she says. “But once I came up here, I found this huge community of people doing cool stuff and interested in the same things that I was doing. I made a bunch of friends who were so like-minded.”
Along with her store, Barratt sells her handmade dolls and animals — made from natural and recycled materials like buttons, lace and linens — at erikabarratt.com.
“A lot of the materials I use are natural fibers,” she says. “I stuff my dolls with wool. I also use linens and cotton and things I have collected over the years. Sometimes I dye different materials with teas or natural dyes. I’ve even had customers mail me materials that they think I could use, like old men’s wool suits, and use that to create the clothes for my creatures.”
Barratt hand-sews the details, from embroidering the faces to stuffing them with wool and threading each strand of hair.
This fall, she plans to offer classes at Lucinda & Jean, a children’s store and community art space she co-owns at 167 Main St. in Cold Spring.
“I feel excited about teaching other people to do it,” she says. “It’s fun and the skills can be passed down to others in the family.”
Her own children have already started the journey. Her daughter, who is 6, advises her on which buttons or colors to use, although Barratt says, “If I listened to her everything would be pink. But she does push me to different creative heights, like adding more sparkle.”
