T
he space where Kylee-Jai Wright paints her peg dolls is small. She works at a table in the corner of the dining room she shares with her husband and two small children and their dogs – rather in the way her craft is squeezed into a life busy with people and things. In fact, her dolls came into being as a result of Kylee’s role as a mother. “I think I’m becoming a feminist as I’ve grown older,” she says. “I began Petit Pegs because my daughter was into Frozen, and I didn’t want her to have the Barbie-style Frozen dolls in the shops at such a young age. I didn’t want those dolls to influence how she perceived women should look. I’m a craft addict so I thought I’d have a go at painting on the pegs I’d had in a drawer for ages. She loved the result, so we put off having Barbie for a while.” 58 AH DECEMBER 2016
Kylee’s peg dolls are exquisitely painted and immensely tactile. Among her recent work are sets of dolls depicting the Nativity (BD40) and Alpha Pegs (BD25), in which a doll portrays each letter of the alphabet. For all this variety – on her worktable, a wooden Iron Man stands next to a peg donkey – her dolls’ faces are uniformly pared down. “I paint some details on the pegs, but the faces are deliberately minimalist and expressionless, with just the eyes painted on. They are based on Waldorf toys, which are faceless to encourage children to add their own feelings during play.” A trained junior teacher, Kylee favours beautifully made, open-ended wooden toys over bright, plastic toys that do not evoke children’s imagination. She hasn’t worked as a teacher since her daughter was born in 2011, but Petit Pegs keeps her busy. “I get