Oliver Makes Dolls
Pinoy Doctor Coppélius
Well, Sort Of...
By Kiki Tan
PUBLISHED: JULY 2009

“The 'business' idea came when I saw the voodoo dolls being sold in Session Road (Baguio City) during the Panagbenga Festival.  The dolls are plain and boring, and are quite expensive. I thought maybe if I could make better looking dolls, I could sell them for profit.” Oliver dela Rosa Ocampo

In Arthur Saint-Léon’s originally choreographed ballet Coppélia (with ballet libretto by Saint-Léon and Charles Nuitter, and music by Léo Delibes), the macabre character created by E.T.A. Hoffmann (in Der Sandmann, The Sandman; and Die Puppe, The Doll) in Doctor Coppélius was turned into one who was sentimental yet comedic (albeit in a somewhat pathetic kind of way) – he made the doll Coppélia so life-like, he fell for her (a la Pygmalion) hard, he wanted to give her life. The closest he got, however, was making hearts – one heart, in particular: that of the main male character Franz – flutter with love, proving the greatness of his invention, which, many thought, was real, meaning, obviously, that he was THAT good.

Alas, the biggest lesson supposed to be derived from the story is on the truth of love – Franz, who was engaged to be married, in the first place, realized the follies of his ways and returned to his fiancée Swanilda.  What is not often (if at all) mentioned is the artistry, the focus on coming up with something good that Doctor Coppélius, in his own way, represented (the story was, after all, said to have inspired Charles Babbage – the oft-cited/attributed inventor of the computer) with his making of something what may be seen as trivial, a doll

And it is in this that Filipino dollmaker Oliver dela Rosa Ocampo shares an affinity.

CREATIVE PIECES

“I started making these dolls early this year (2009), around January,” Ocampo recalls.  “I was playing around with pieces of felt cloth one lazy Sunday, and came up with small pillow dolls (plushies).  I posted (their) photos in my Facebook account, and some friends inquired about them – one even told me that it could make for a great Valentine's Day gift.”

Early on, of course, “I had no intentions of selling them or making them for profit.  When I made my first dolls, it never really crossed my mind that I could sell my creations. I gave them away as gifts to close friends,” Ocampo says.  “The 'business' idea came when I saw the voodoo dolls being sold in Session Road (Baguio City) during the Panagbenga Festival.  The dolls are plain and boring, and are quite expensive. I thought maybe if I could make better looking dolls, I could sell them for profit.”

So Ocampo experimented on various designs and materials to come up with his version of a voodoo doll.

“I added accessories, I designed the packaging, and then I posted the photos on the Internet.  A few days later, people started to inquire about them and I got my first orders. I even have people asking if I could display some of my dolls in their shops,” he says.

From then on, the dollmaking business was on.

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