Maryanne's early dolls were polyform with expressive faces and hands. The bodies are wire armatures covered with upholstery cotton and skin-colored knit fabric. Children are her delight and she created more than 80 in the first two and a half years, each approximately 7" tall. Her later dolls are basically porcelain, wither children or character types. All her dolls are limited editions of 25 to 50 and vary in size from 10 to 20 inches tall. She has also made fabric and soft scultpure dolls.

Maryanne created the souvenir doll for the 1981 IDMA convention and the 1982 UFDC Region 10 Conference. She was the ODACA souvenir artist for 2001.

I would like to introduce myself, and my dolls. My name is Maryanne Oldenburg. I have been an accomplished doll artist since 1973. Born and raised in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, I now live about 20 miles outside of Sheboygan on 10 rolling acres of meadow land, with my studio plunked right in the middle. I married my high school sweetheart, who has been and is the "wind beneath my wings"; who understands my passion for designing and creating each new doll/figure. We have been blessed with 4 of the greatest kids who have all worked at sometime or another in this crazy doll business and 8 grandchildren who always keep me young at heart.

After years as a free lance commercial artist, I took a break with the birth of my youngest in 1967 and started building doll houses (8 in all) to appease and compensate my desire to be an interior decorator. After a few years my husband suggested I should create families to fill the houses. Experimenting with everything from felt, to wood, to paper-mache, in 1972 I stumbled onto the Polyform Products Co. and the first Sculpey. The last house was a 1:12 version of "Tara" with 4 members of an 1820 family.

My dollhouses were soon put aside for this fabulous new clay and I started illustrating, 3-dimenstionally, children's poems, mostly ones by Robert Louis Stevenson. Our county library asked to display my houses for a month in May of 1973, along with my first 6 new "Poem Tots" as I called them. With the publicity of a 2 page article in the local Sheboygan Press, the library called and told me they had some visitors from out of town who wanted to buy my "dolls". "What dolls?" I asked, then tried to explain that those were figures, not dolls but they wanted them anyway. And so began my plunge into the "Doll World" with the sale of my first 4 dolls!

From 1973 to 1989, I designed, produced and sold my dolls directly to collectors around the country. My "Poem Tots" continued until '76 when a dear friend gave me a one week crash course in porcelain doll making, followed by a trial and error weekend of plaster mold making. In 1990 I was fortunate to move with great success into the wholesale market. Joining me in my new adventure of the doll production business were my two daughters, Bambi and Kelly. My husband, Bob, and Kelly’s husband, Bob, also helped out on a part time basis.

In 1990 I took another giant step into the wholesale world of Toy Fair and eventually IDEX. My daughters quit their jobs to come to work with me and we worked as a team for the next 10 years. We produced over 200 designs in editions of 50, 30 and 15 each. I came to really dislike the drudgery of production and yearned for the "creative" end of the business. So now I am back to my first love of one-of-a-kinds in polymer clay. We still do some commissioned work in resin, with my husband doing most of the "messy" work, I just have to design, paint and wig and one of my daughters still helps out with the sewing. I am her secondary income now.

In 1998 my desire to spend more time being “creative”, rather than being a “production machine”, I decided to change media. I now work only in the polyclays, so each piece I create becomes a “one of a kind”. Occasionally I will create a doll for resin production but these are extremely limited editions. Although we still do 'souvenir' dolls for UFDC Luncheons and Regional Conferences.

Each year I exhibit the latest designs at the American International Toy Fair in New York City, as well as IDEX in San Francisco. At these shows I sell directly to shops and stores around the country and (internationally) under the company name of Oldenburg Originals. I also attend the Doll and Teddy Bear Expos both East and West and the Kansas City Doll Fair, when time permits.

My specialty is children, from newborns to pre-teens. I have been fortunate to have won hundreds of awards at UFDC, IDMA and at IDEX. Several of my dolls were nominated for DOLLS Award of Excellence.

Another advantageous venture for me has been teaching doll design and sculpting, throughout the United States. Besides traveling to teach at conventions, conferences and private studios, I also teach in my home studio several times a year in a Bed and Breakfast atmosphere. I teach basic anatomy, proportions, wig making, costume design, along with many other doll related subjects. I have done competitive judging in original creation categories and quite often I lecture and demonstrate the art and process of doll making and design throughout the country. I love teaching, lecturing and demonstrating to promote this exciting world of dolls. My favorite subject to teach of course is sculpting.

"To sculpt what you see, not what your brain thinks it knows" philosophy, along with basic anatomy and proportions. I also teach everything from wig making, to design/pattern making, to fairy wing making and anything in between.

I am a member of ODACA (23 yrs.), the United Federation of Doll Clubs (UFDC); the Doll Study Club of Mid-Wisconsin; and The American Academy of Doll Artists, as well as an Artist/Patron of the National Institute of American Doll Artists (NIADA). This year I will be celebrating over 30 years in the doll world!