WHEN Minnie Robinson found her bone condition had left her with incomplete quadriplegia, facing a long spell in hospital, unable any longer to pursue her career in accountancy, she could have been forgiving for falling prey to despair. But despair isn’t in her vocabulary and instead, she saw it as an opportunity.
Minnie, who grew up in Carole Park and Redbank Plains, decided she should put her hobby of dollmaking to a good cause. Seeing a fellow patient in rehab, who was unable even to cuddle, feel comfort from the weight of a doll in her lap, she realised the power of dolls to bring solace to others.
Now Minnie spends her time sculpting reborn dolls to donate to those who can benefit from owning them. She has a small business selling the dolls but it exists purely to fund materials to make them to give away.
She said, “My main focus is on therapy. Patients with dementia, parents who have suffered child loss, those who cannot have children. These are the people I try to help.”
Her quadriplegia is not complete – it gets better and worse, causing intermittent paralysis, but it does make getting out of bed difficult and the effort of getting around can be challenging. However, she has a reason to do it.
Minnie said, “Knowing I can make these babies and give people comfort gets me out of bed.”
And sculpting babies is itself a form of therapy. When in rehab, working hard to be able to move her limbs, she was given lumps of playdough to work with. Squishing the playdough was satisfying, but a creative mind led Minnie to making little figures from it. This led her to start thinking about further creative outlets.
Finding that sketching, then painting, were within her compass, she moved on to sculpting. First, she began painting vinyl dolls to make them lifelike, with hair sometimes from alpacas. Now she creates incredibly lifelike babies from silicon. It has given her a new lease of life.
That life is sustained by a supportive family. Husband Ian helps her with moulding and her kids give her a taxi service. Ian helps set up her stall at conventions so, as she says, “I can whizz around and chat.”
Most of us would struggle if struck down with a condition that robbed us of mobility and work and left us sometimes unable to lift ourselves from bed. Not Minnie. She said, “I’ll keep going, even if I can only do a couple of minutes at a time. Nothing can stop me.” Her eyesight is also failing and she knows that soon she will be left blind. This doesn’t daunt her. She’s making as many dolls as she can so that she can use them to teach others.
“There’s always someone worse off,” she said. “I am never stopping while that’s true.”
