Meet the Emotikin

Do you have a creative courage companion, one who kindles your creativity, unblocks your stuckness, and urges you to go outside and play? I call that my Inner Artist, while some call it your inner teacher, higher self, true self or soul. My Emotikin, this scarf-clad wooden art manikin, sans wire and pedestal, is my Inner Artist personified. It brought me back to life after a time of burnout, dark days with only glimmers of light. It’s why I say “Creativity is my caffeine” (read the story behind that here).

Welcome to the world of Emotikin, where little manikins are posed to:

  • reflect your emotions
  • help you communicate clearly
  • break the ice
  • pose a question or poke a joke
  • remind you to be kind to your kin
  • get you out of your head and into your heart
  • motivate you to play in your day.

Emotikin are metaphors in motion.

Discover the History of Art Mannequins

Mannequins: A Tool of the Artist’s Workshop (April 21, 2016) by Marjorie Shelley, Sherman Fairchild Conservator in Charge, Department of Paper Conservation, Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Artist Mannequin at the Barry Art Museum. Models of the human body with articulated joints were called laymen, lay figures, or mannequins. They have been useful devices for artists working in a studio without a model since the Renaissance, although they may have had their origins in the articulated dolls of Ancient Greece and Rome.

Artists’ Mannequins Through the Centuries
Meet Bella Luna, the first Emotikin on her first photoshoot in April 2003, on the shores of the Colorado River.
Meet Bella Luna, the first Emotikin on her first photoshoot on April 7, 2003, on the shores of the Colorado River. She’s actually the only Emotikin with a name.

Learn more about the care & feeding of your Emotikin, or ideas for how to play in your day.

Learn the Lingo

Here are a few words from our root words, e-mó-ti-kin & manikin, to kindle your imagination:

emote: to express one’s feelings

emoticon: in computers, a combination of keyboard symbols representing caricatures of human emotions such as happiness, skepticism and surprise

motion: the act or process of changing position; a purposeful movement of the body or body part; a formal proposal or suggestion that action be taken

motivate: causing a person to act

manikin: from the German mannikijn “little man”; a poseable figure used by artists, tailors or dressmakers

kin: family, related individuals

kind: (n) a characteristic, a variety; (adj) of a friendly or good-natured disposition, coming from a good natured willingness to please others.

kindle:  to excite feelings; to ignite, to catch fire (the ebook reader from Amazon came later!)

kindred: having a like nature; kindred spirits are friends you recognize instantly, feeling as if you’ve known them forever on the first day you meet

kinesics: to study the relationship between communication and body language