Ken Yenke, A teddy bear expert

 

A teddy bear expert

I have been re-reading my teddy bear reference books lately and adding a few more titles to my bookshelf. There are some superb collectors' books, written in the 1980's and 90's, now listed secondhand on websites such as 'World of Books' and good old Ebay... and usually offered at very reasonable prices.

I love to read about the development of the teddy bear over the past century. It is fascinating to learn about the teddy bear phenomenom and its impact on social history... and as a teddy bear designer myself, I am always inspired by photographs of old bears. I think I may be a bit of a teddy bear geek (!) but the written history of the teddy bear has always interested me; perhaps because the authors who write about our beloved teddy bear, are also genuine collectors and enthusiasts, writing with deep passion and respect for their subject. One such author was Ken Yenke, an American teddy bear expert, sadly lost to the bear world after his death in 2014...

Ken was an expert in the truest sense of the word. Not only respected internationally for his broad subject knowledge and love of teddy bears, but also a dedicated private collector. He built a significant collection of antique teddy bears with his wife Brenda and shared them with the world through his books... which I am fortunate enough to have on my workroom bookshelf.

I first learned of Ken Yenke's work through my subscription to a US teddy bear magazine published in the 1980's. Subsequently, as a competitive teddy bear artist, I was honoured to have Ken include my nomination in 'The Golden Teddy Bear Awards' presentation video in 2011. I didn't win my category that year but it was such a thrill to be included in his presentation! https://allbear.blogspot.com/2011/10/2011-golden-teddy-award-winners.html 

If you would like to read more about Ken's beautiful teddy bear collection and the wonderful personal histories behind many of the bears, I highly recommend hunting for copies of his books. They are written in his inimitably warm, personal style and in my view, are a real treat for any teddy bear enthusiast!

Ken Yenke's titles are as follows:

Teddy Bear Treasury Vol. 1
Teddy Bear Treasury Vol. 2
Bing Bears and toys

https://www.kenyenke.com/about


There are of course, many other fine teddy bear titles, written by a variety of authors, now available to find secondhand. I will publish a list of some of my personal favourites at a later date for anyone interested in delving deeper into this fascinating topic.

Happy teddy bear reading ... and collecting!

Featured Artist!

 

Featured Artist!

A little plug for the Teddy Bear Times magazine, which has kindly featured a lovely multi-page article about my work as a teddy bear maker over the past thirty years, in the latest issue!

If you would like to purchase a copy, please visit the magazine's website at:

 https://www.teddybeartimes.com/issues

There is a beautiful traditional print magazine available to purchase, if like me, you like to savour your read with a cuppa... but if you are overseas, you might prefer to download the online copy, which is a great way to avoid paying pricey shipping costs!

Retired teddy bears of distinction

 

Retired teddy bears of distinction

After thirty years of creating teddy bears for adult collectors, I thought it was time to remind myself of how it feels to open a special teddy bear delivery... and when I spotted this beautiful 1930's Chiltern Hugmee teddy bear, I knew he would be 'the one' to mark three decades of me creating teddy bears for other folk.

Opening his box was a complete delight. He had been carefully wrapped in tissue paper and as I gently peeled back the layers, I could see he was in superb condition, especially for such an elderly gent!

As many of you know, my childhood Chiltern Hugmee teddy bear led me into the fascinating grown up world of arctophilia and bear artistry, so this fabulous fellow now brings me full circle. The perfect bear to commemorate thirty years of making teddy bears for other collectors. This, as yet nameless Chiltern Hugmee teddy bear, will be joining a small collection of special Chiltern Hugmee bears who keep me company in my workroom each day ... as well as somewhere to create bears, it is also my little place of safety for retired teddy bears of distinction!

Where it began...

 

Where it began...

Where it all began. This photo is an important element of my bearmaking journey over the past thirty years. My connection with teddy bears has lasted my entire lifetime and long before I made my first teddy bear, I was a bear collector. It began with a love of Chiltern Hugmee teddy bears, the British manufacturer of the wonderful Hugmee teddy bear range, made in the UK from 1923 until 1967. My parents gave me a beautiful large Chiltern Hugmee for my first birthday in 1964, a very special big bear (third from right, centre row) who sat on my bed for many years... and the rest, as they say, is history!

Full Circle

 

Full Circle

One for vintage teddy bear admirers... a proud moment in my bear making history.

My first childhood teddy bear, a fine 1950's Chiltern Hugmee, holds a copy of the 2011 Hugglets UK Teddy Bear Guide, featuring one of my original handcrafted teddy bear designs called 'Chester' on the front cover.

Now that is what you might call a full circle!

The art of...

 

The art of...

The art of creating artist teddy bears follows a long road of trial, error, determination to improve and the gift of a creative soul.

An original handcrafted teddy bear flows from the maker's heart and hands, into a character woven with the warmth of childhood nostagia and a sense of comfort.

The centre seam design

 

The centre-seam design

I think I designed my very first centre-seam teddy bear under my 'Auntie Bears by Paula Carter' label, way back in 1996... a lovely white bear called 'Mischief'. Since then, I have continued to make these unique teddy bears, first inspired by Steiff, who were famous for creating one very special teddy bear in every seven made, with a two piece centre-seam head design, which in practical terms made maximum use of the precious mohair fabric yardage... and by chance, also created exceptional beautiful teddy bears!

My centre-seam design creates a lovely rounded teddy head shape and dare I say, sometimes slightly grumpy faces! The centre-seam teddy bears have their own endearing identity and are instantly recognisable. I usually lean towards traditional bear styling with this design but have occasionally tried it with more contemporary teds. These teddy bears are rarer for collectors to find, as like Steiff, I make them less frequently... 

Incidentally, my 23" centre-seam teddy bear clown 'Billy Buttons', was honoured with the prestigious International Industry's Choice TOBY Award, in 2008. One of my proudest achievements as a teddy bear designer.

This year I have introduced my centre-seam teddy in a smaller 16" size, perfect for hugs! If you would like to add one of these special teddy bears to your collection, please pop over to my shop page to meet 'Reggie'.

Thirty years, in print!

 

Thirty years, in print!

I have some exciting news to share this week... I was sworn to secrecy until the 'Teddy Bear Times and Friends' latest publication date, which is this week... so, at last, I am able to share my secret with you!

Earlier this year, the UK 'Teddy Bear Times' magazine asked if they could publish a feature about my thirty year career as a teddy bear artist ... of course I agreed instantly as it is such an honour to have my work published! This month, the team has kindly included a beautiful multi-page article written about my life as a teddy bear maker. I am so thrilled!

Issue 276 will be available for single copy purchase from the TBT website in a few days' and if you are fortunate enough to hold a subscription, you should be receiving your copy through the letterbox this week.

I am not able to share a photo of the new magazine here today, as I haven't yet received my own copy, so for the sake of nostalgia, the photograph I am sharing with you today is a flashback to 1997, when a wonderfully large bear called 'Gently', a bear I designed and created, was featured on the front cover of the prestigious Teddy Bear Times magazine! (Incidentally, the cover price has risen somewhat over the years... a printed copy is now priced at £7.99 and a year's subscription £65.00... the days of £2.95 for a specialist collector's magazine are now long gone!)

If you would like to order a printed copy of issue 276, featuring my article, or a copy of the magazine in digital format, please head over to: 

https://www.teddybeartimes.com/

I am reliably informed that the most recent magazine, issue number 276, will be available to order directly from the Teddy Bear Times website very soon.

A traditional trio

 

A traditional trio

Meet Floyd, Flo and Fitz, my three latest shop exclusive teddy bears. They have just arrived at The Bear Shop in Norwich and are busy meeting and greeting customers and all the other teddy bears!

If you are interested in adopting any of these bears, you are welcome to visit, or telephone the shop for current availability.

The Bear Shop
18 Elm Hill
Norfolk
NR3 1HN

Tel: 01603  766866

Apple Blossom Serenity

 

Spring is such a lovely time in the UK. The blossom trees are an absolute picture in their beautiful pastel shades. It is the perfect season to be inspired by nature and for creating pretty pastel teddy girls. 'Apple Blossom' is my latest teddy bear, a vision in peachy pinks and pale apple green, with a tiny hint of lilac... capturing a moment of sweet teddy bear serenity.

Magic Moment

 

Magic Moment

While I was hunting through the old photographs I mentioned in my last post, I started to sort through the many teddy bear magazines I have collected over the past thirty years and I came across this copy of the 'Teddy Bear Times' magazine...

I couldn't help but smile to myself... seeing the cover again took me right back to 1997 and the early days of my bear-making career. Having one of my teddy bears published as cover star on a national teddy bear magazine for the very first time was thrilling!

'Gently', a very large teddy bear with a beautiful, gentle face, was featured on the front cover of Issue 45. I had taken the photograph myself, then sent it to the magazine, together with several others... and they chose to use Gently on the cover! It was a wonderful compliment to my bears and in those pre-internet days, very exciting to rush hotfoot into town to see the copies displayed for sale in our local High Street shops!

Bear Beginnings, Auntie Bears

Bear Beginnings

I have been hunting out old 'Auntie Bears' photographs from the 1990's... this photo was snapped at 'The Big Bear Show' in the Business and Design Centre, Islington, London in 1998...

Back in my early bearmaking days, teddy bear photographs were taken on an old SLR 35mm film camera and developed at the local printers. Sharing new work was a much longer-winded process than it is today...digital cameras and mobile phones have made the process of distributing photographs so much faster. However, it has also made it even more important to remember to document my bears because digital pictures are so easily lost and forgotten.

For the past twenty years, I have always made an annual photobook of my designs. I keep the books lined up neatly on my workroom shelf and enjoy referring back to them regularly when I am designing new bears. It is a lovely document of how my teddy bears evolved over the years and one day, I hope my grandchildren will enjoy these portfolio books and take a sense of pride in their Nana's 'work'. 

It occurred to me recently, that my earliest designs weren't ever made into a photo album and neither was the 'Auntie Bears' story...

The 90's was a very special time for hand crafted teddy bears in the United Kingdom, re-igniting a nostalgic passion for teddy bears in collectors who had loved them as children and lighting a flame of creativity in many aspiring bearmakers. Prior to the age of the internet, teddy bears became established as an art form in the UK in the early 1990's, designed and created with dedication and love by bear artists in their own homes, then sold through shops and at specialist teddy bear fairs across the country. 

It was an exciting time to become a new bearmaker. There were so many creative challenges... learning to run one's own business effectively, fulfilling the desire to produce quality teddy bears to share with collectors, establishing a market for them and helping secure their heritage for future generations. Creating 'artist bears' for adult collectors quickly became an all-encompassing passion for me, one that I have never tired of and probably never will.

In those days showcasing work was an important element of growing a small business and developing new ideas, so participating in specialist competitions hosted by magazines, seemed a sensible path to take, if I wanted validation for my teddy bear designs. I pushed forward with what I considered exciting new bear designs and despite being in complete awe of my fellow competitors, braved entry into the British Bear Artist Awards in 1997, 1998 and 1999, achieving recognition instantly when my submissions were honoured with awards.  It was a heady time!  Suddenly my bears were invited overseas, exhibited in museums, featured in magazine articles. My order book quickly filled and my telephone didn't stop ringing at all hours. My bears had arrived on the worldwide teddy bear stage!

Auntie Bears was the banner under which my sister Fiona and I sold the bears we designed and made individually. We both loved creating big bold teddy bears and were great friends, besides being good sisters. In fact, it was Fiona who launched our bear-making journey by one day by showing our work to the owners of 'The Rochester Bear Shop'. We were then invited to exhibit at our very first local bear show, hosted by the shop and our bearmaking path was set. Going forward, we shared costs, attended shows together and planned marketing strategies as sisters, working hard to establish 'Auntie Bears' and find our niche in the heart of the teddy bear industry.

So, back to my dusty photographs! I was looking for my earliest teddy bear designs to begin making a book of my earliest work but of our four years as Auntie Bears, I could only find a couple of small slip albums holding photographs. Unfortunately many of my original photographs were disposed of when I moved house in 2007; caught up in the fast paced age of the internet, it didn't occur to me back then, I might find a purpose for those old photographs in the future...

Thankfully, whilst searching for photographs, I also came across boxes of old teddy bear magazines and found many of the articles featuring Auntie Bears and our work as teddy bear designers. Happy memories that made me smile all over again almost thirty years later, reminding me of long forgotten moments in my own teddy bear making history. It was a magical time to begin a bearmaking business and one I now plan to document properly...  I am so glad I kept those magazines!

It hardly seems possible I have now been making teddy bears for the best part of thirty years. Those thirty years have seen many changes in the bear making world, the most significant being the use of the internet to reach out to collectors around the world. These days information can be made available instantly at the press of a button, which is amazing but I do sometimes wonder whether the internet can ever truly convey the dedication to creating teddy bears and many hours of work and skill involved in their production... the passion behind their evolution. I do hope so.

Sadly we have seen the demise of many specialist teddy bear publications, teddy bear shows, shops and competitions worldwide in recent years and yet, collectors still love teddy bears and creators still need to express themselves through the art of their creation. Hopefully, that love and dedication always be sufficient to protect the teddy bear both as an art form and also as a friend, in the disposable digital world in which we now find our much loved Teddy Bear.

A stitch in time

 

A stitch in time

I think I was about five years old when I was given my first pair of knitting needles and a ball of pink yarn. Even now, at the age of almost sixty-two years, I can remember sitting with other children around a table at school, needles held clumsily in hand, trying to knit a pink square under the eagle eyed tuition of a teacher. As the somewhat wonky square slowly began to form, peppered with dropped stitches, I felt the seed of a sense of accomplishment...

I was never a natural handicraft student. My mum, a talented knitter, tried to teach me but my hopeless lefthandedness (referred to rather unflatteringly as 'cackhandedness' in those days) tested her patience considerably. At the age of twenty, with the birth of my first child imminent, I picked up a pair of knitting needles once more and borrowed an instruction book from mum, determined to make a few snuggly baby clothes to take into hospital for the arrival of my baby. It was a battle, but somehow, I managed to produce a fairly successful pair of booties, a couple of cardigans, a bonnet and a little matinée jacket. Dressing my new daughter in her first hand knitted clothes to bring her home a couple of days later, was a very special moment for me as a new mum, wrapping her with love, protection and warmth, to begin our new life together.

Since that moment in 1983, I have often knitted gifts to welcome new family babies, initially clothes and toys for my nieces and more recently, toys, cardigans and jumpers for my Grandchildren, Great Nieces and newest addition, my brand new Great Nephew. I have even knitted cosy jackets to keep my daughter's little Chihuahua warm in the winter and of course, have made many woollen scarves, jumpers and hats to accessorize the teddy bears I create.

I love the process of creating something from a simple ball of yarn or piece of cloth. Weaving and sewing basic materials into something I picture in my mind's eye, is a magical process. Using skills passed from generation to generation, lends me comfort and a sense of perpetuity and purpose as I fashion items by hand. Each stitch is a marker of this knitter's history and skills honed over many years.

I read that the very first knitted objects found were socks, *created in Egypt in the 11th Century. The earliest known knitted items found in Europe were made by Muslims employed by the Spanish Christian Royal Families in the 13th Century. Knitting became popular in Europe in the 14th Century, with hand knitted items found by archeologists in major cities such as London.

I was fascinated to learn that knitting schools were created in the 17th and 18th centuries, particularly in Scotland and in the coastal regions of England, their aim to help provide income for the poor. Hand knitting was an empowering skill for the lower classes, who knitted not only to clothe their families but also to earn payment. They knitted coarse hose from wool with large needles for themselves and fine stockings with tiny metal needles, to sell to aristocracy.

The craft of knitting was probably introduced to the continent by Egyptian Coptic Monks, passing on the knowledge that cloth could be woven from sheep wool, its dense, waterproof properties suitable for keeping people warm and dry. Knitting was a skill that itself was subsequently woven through many centuries of knitting, both for practical purpose and for pleasure. So many knitters, in so many countries around the world, over so many centuries, creating garments, blankets and toys from yarn, developing their own techniques and stories to pass on to future generations...  and importantly, to trade with. Knitting really is an incredible handicraft when you think about its broad history!

My mum used to enjoy knitting Aran garments and I inherited her passion for these complicated patterns. The history of these beautifully intricate, warm and essentially practical garments, is fascinating... *"From its origins, the Aran sweater has been intimately linked to clans and their identities. The many combinations of stitches seen on the garment are not incidental, far from it. They can impart vast amounts of information to those who know how to interpret them. Aran sweaters were, and remain, a reflection of the lives of the knitters, and their families. On the Aran islands, sweater patterns were zealously guarded, kept within the same clan throughout generations. These Aran sweaters were often used to help identify bodies of fishermen washed up on the beach following an accident at sea." Guernsey and Fairisle knitting patterns, also full of history and an expression of local culture, are similarly fascinating patterns, each a wonderful record of British island heritage. I for one, wish schools would return to teaching students about this rich history, to help instill within them a sense of pride in the continuity in British handicrafts. It will be a crying shame if such skills and timeless traditions become lost to us as a result of a fast moving, disposable, technological age.

Now for a little knitting continuity of my own...The dolly pattern in the photograph was designed by my favourite knitted toy designer Jean Greenhowe, sadly no longer with us. From the 1960's Jean wrote beautifully accessible, detailed knitting patterns, always full of fun and passion for toy making. I first discovered Jean's patterns when my children were very young in the 1980's. My sister and I loved to create the toys Jean designed for our children and over the years, I have since collected most of Jean's pattern booklets. I first made 'Emily' dolly (shown in the inset pic wearing lilac) almost twenty years ago, for a niece's birthday. Last year, I decided to make myself a knitted 'Emily' dolly, to celebrate Christmas with. I thought it would be nice to sit her in my lounge by the Christmas tree. Unfortunately I didn't quite finish her in time for the big day, but rather than give up, finished her in the New Year instead. I adjusted the pattern slightly to give my own 'Holly Dolly' a festive theme for Christmas and was very happy with how she turned out, so rather than pack her away for next Christmas, I popped her on the sideboard next to my antique sewing machine and will keep her on display all year round....

That is, unless my Granddaughter, who has fallen in love with this sweet dolly, snaffles her first!


*For further reading sources on the history of knitting, please visit these websites:


https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/the-history-of-hand-knitting
https://www.jeangreenhowe.com/design2.html
https://knitlikegranny.com/knitting-history/
https://www.hayzedmagazine.com/fashion/a-brief-history-of-knitting-in-the-uk/
https://www.aran.com/our-history-the-story-of-aran
https://www.yarnpalace.com/the-history-of-knitting-from-ancient-times-to-modern-trends