Returning Visitors!
I have added an addendum at the end to bring you up to date. Thank you for returning!

When I was growing up, I was taught by a very wise mother who once said, don't marry someone because they can cook a meal for you or sew on a button, even clean up after you. Marry for love. And she taught her three sons to take care of themselves. So I followed her advice, I married for love. I fell in love with someone who only has to smile at me and she makes me melt.

Of course I fell in love with someone who does not like to cook, or clean, and even though she can sew, has never sewn on a button for me. There was the couple of pair of pants that got hemmed once, but that was so many pants sizes ago I can't remember what they look like. (I wonder if I pull them out of the back of the closet that maybe I could sell them on E-bay as some sort of artist's proof?) We were both elementary school teachers in Sydney, Australia when we met and fell in love. Very romantic; overseas, she had a balcony, and yes, there was a serenade.

What seems like a romance novel on the first pages has actually been more than twenty five years, and I have found myself at the side of my best friend and doll artist, Maggie Iacono. For the past fourteen years I have been here full time taking care of anything I can do, (or anything that Maggie can teach me to do,) in order to free up her time to create. Before working for Maggie I was in retail management and on my day off would answer the phone and say "no" to stores that wanted more. Maggie could not keep up with the demand and my business sense told me to never say "no" to a sale. Working retail hours, I couldn't find enough time to truly help, even working into the wee hours of the night was not enough.

So we decided I should stay home and help her develop a business in this incredible doll and art world. Today, we seem to be working constantly, filling the orders from our stores and collectors. We have sold out our editions for the past few years and have been extremely busy. Now I find myself still working into the wee hours of the night...(so much for that business sense I thought I had.) We work well together because as friends we compliment each others talents. With small editions of 70 pieces most of the time, Maggie will dream up this fabulous accessory and I then figure out how to effectively get all seventy done, leaving the finishing touches to Maggie's skilled hands. My first contribution will always be to remove all obstacles from her creative process. If it is running to the store for a certain color of embroidery floss she desperately needs, or making her stop to eat because she has forgotten the time, I am there for her support.

In a way, I feel like a patron of the arts, helping this particular artist create the amazing dolls she dreams up. Our collectors are wonderful patrons too, who love our work so much that each day we get to do what we love best. I take care of all the communication between ourselves and the stores that sell our dolls. Collectors and artist friends often call and I have gotten to meet so many wonderful people along the way. Each day we both have our plan of what must get done and sometimes we meet for lunch in the kitchen. Other times we have coffee together and talk. Sometimes it is not about our three daughters and what they have been up to lately!

Yes....that is right, do the math, I live with four women. Worse, I have to keep house after them. And they say that boys are messy! The truth is, we have been blessed with three incredible kids. They are all artists in their own right, and they keep us on our toes. Jennifer is 22, in college majoring in fine arts and gets to play with every kind of medium there is. Her first love is to take a photo and go to the computer and enhance it into the perfect portrait. If you look at the photo of me in this article and you've never met me then you won't know it's such a touch up. Now that I think of it, I should have asked her to give me more hair. Our 20 year old is in film school, and going to be a famous director someday. Lucky for me, I have some of her early work on VHS......maybe those tapes will go on E-bay too someday. (I'm only looking out for my retirement.) Our youngest is Amy, 14, and she keeps us young. And she makes us laugh too. Her talent is to observe us all and let us know exactly how it is. She loves to write, and if she ever writes all of this down, we're all in trouble. Maggie looks for all of their reactions when they enter her studio, 'out of the mouth of babes' kind of truthfulness is what they offer.

The best part about working at home is that I get to do all the things I like most. When Maggie has asked me to solve a problem, or think of a method that we can use to make this special touch she wants, that is when I feel that I am contributing to her art. It can be very long hours sometimes, but the commute is great. I take up most of the basement of our home with a packing and shipping area, my workshop, and the cutting, sewing and assembly areas. I produce the bodies for Maggie is dolls. I make each and everyone of those tiny poseable fingers too. I hope all you collectors out there are posing all of your dolls in wonderful displays. I work hard to make those bodies, so I hope your are playing with them. Just make sure your hands are clean first! Thank you. I don't want to think that all my hard work is just standing there like soldiers at attention behind glass.

Maggie is very critical on every detail of what she hands to a collector. Everything has to be perfect before it leaves her studio. She often asks for my opinion on something new she is working on and sometimes I can instantly see the possibility of what she is attempting. Other times we all back away from the studio because she is in a whirlwind of fabric and should have on of those "on air" signs above the studio door. She can be a real tough boss sometimes, but then all I have to do is bake an apple pie, have her float out of the studio on the aroma, and I remember that she is still my best friend.

I am truly in love in the kitchen, it is my favorite room in the house. To be truthful, I watch TV as I work, and most of the time its on TV Food Network. I make a great biscotti. Maggie and I share the work of creating these incredible felt dolls that go out to our collectors. I leave the art to Maggie and I try to do everything else I can to help her so she will have more time to create new dolls. She is always in the studio with some little project on the side, and people ask me where does she get all of her ideas, and I have to say I have no idea myself.

We could be shopping for fabric and I will see a beautiful piece of silk and at the same time Maggie sees the same fabric and how she is going to transform it into something completely amazing. She cuts, and pleats, and drapes, and paints, and dyes.....dyes like there is no tomorrow. We have the strangest clothesline sometimes, things like seventy 28 inch strips of felt blowing in the breeze, that have been dyed the perfect shade of green, or how about 300 yards of ribbon, tinted to the perfect shade of salmon. What do our neighbors really think?

All in all I am a very lucky man, taking care of a very lucky woman. Both of us know that. That's why we have been so successful at working together.

We're best friends.

Addendum:

Time flies by when you're having a good time. Four years have flown by since I wrote the first 'Tony's Corner'. My workload has increased, but there is a little less laundry since our daughter Jennifer (now 26) moved to Philadelphia. She's not too far away that she can't drag her laundry home, but now she does it herself. (One should be thankful for little things.) Of course when she's home she is still called upon to help me with Adobe Photoshop, or lend her photo experience to something Maggie is trying to achieve. Her love of photography has led her to working for a local gift catalog company where she is taking photos for their catalogs. Emily has turned 24 and has made major contributions to our little company with her video productions. For the last three UFDC (United Federated Doll Clubs) we have held special events and the reason they have become so special is because of Emily's videos. We began with 'The Perfect hat' in 2005 and then 'The Surprise Ending' in 2006. 2007 will bring 'Our Musical Staff' to the Detroit convention, and each year the videos are more precious than the last. Amy is now 18...now I'm feeling old. She has been writing and now it's time to look at colleges, universities, and writing courses offered to young writers. She sees the world around her with logic, compassion, and humor. I have never met anyone so fair and giving. If she ran for President, you should vote for her. I would.