Hi, I am Ruth M. Fuchs. Some of you might know me as Ruth Schuhmann - that was, before I got married.

Learning by doing - that's how I started making soft-skulptures. It all began with books full of fairie-tales from every part of the world. Tales, myth, legends and fables were my passion since I was a child. Some of the figures in my favorite stories seemed to scream out to become truth. So at last, I sat down and tried. IN my childhood I refused to play with the dolls that could be bought in the supermarkets. Instead I created my own - using hay, stones, nuts, bits of string - whatever I could find. Now I had to develop this talent, finding new means to translate my ideas into reality. I've never been too fond of Porcelain or Papier-maché, so I started modelling with Clay, Polymer Clay and so on. In short, I have experimented with everything I could get my fingers on. Soon I found out what material suits best with each special figure, with its appearance, its charakter and its expression. Each of my skulptures is unique. Even if I wanted, I could not form another identical to the first.

Head, hands and feet of my figures are sculpted. The eyes are either painted or made of mouth-blown glass. For the skin and the eyes (when painted) I developed a special technik of painting. The body ist a skeleton of wire, which will be covered by fleece and at last elastic fabric, so the skulpture can be motioned. But this still is not a creature to enchant and fascinate you. It has to be dressed. It has to get his own accessoires. So I also had to become a tailor, a silversmith, a shoemaker, a hairdresser, a wig-designer, and so on . There is nothing you can buy to dress a 'doll' like mine.

For the dresses I love to use silk, satin and lace, or, if it suits the character leather and fur. Sometimes I make the wigs out of fur, or of mohair but I prefer human hair. What is still missing I knit, paint, embroider, solder, weave and so on.

Do you have cats? If you have you will understand what I‘m going to talk about. But even if you haven‘t, you will comprehend... just think of your childhood.

It all started when I made up my mind to rearrange my wardrope and for just a moment left the door open while turning my back on it. My two cats Beatrice and Benedick of course felt themseves invited to enter the cabinet. Turning, I could see their tails disappear in the dark. I knew what would happen next: Pullovers, Shirts, underwear - everything in confusion - to become comfortable in the eyes of a cat. I sighed and then - nothing happened. Nothing fell out of the wardrope, nothing was mingled. In fact there didn't seem to be a cat at all and all the more no two cats! So I looked closer. Instead of cats I discovered a door where only yesterday a wall has been. I know, I should have wondered. I should have wiped my eyes and think of dreaming. But I did not. I just opened the door to step through. For a moment I felt like slipping through a rainbow and then...

The first thing I saw were my cats. Obviously they were glad to be accompanied by me. Then I looked around. There was a old and venerable wood or perhaps a grove - and of course it was enchanted. How else would you explaine the way we got to it? 

Rays of sunshine painted patterns on the moss - but I knew it had been raining in the world I came from. Trees seemed to whisper my name, twinkling with their knotholes. And then they came out - little by little, one by one: Imps, dwarfs, dryads, elves and all the others, also witches, herb-lories, and human beings who chose the grove to be their home. And finally Yorick came to greet me. He is the great sorcerer of the grove. In his opinion he is the owner of the grove, too. And the others, well, they don't want to argue.

By now my cats and I are well known in Sorcerer's Grove and made friends with many of the habitants. Sometimes it happens, that one of the creatures even accompanies us back to our own world. If they do not run away again after the first look, they stay with us. Some of them got curious about this world and want to see more of it. For those I'm looking to find people to take care for one of them.