Triangle Man is unique among all Temori dolls, a diminutive race of hand-stitched patchwork creatures with origins in South Korea.
So far, he is the only doll Temori inventor Sanja Postic has made in the shape of a triangle and his physical features — his shiny olive face and star-spangled torso — are exclusive to him.
Born in Croatia and now living in South Africa, Postic started making Temori dolls in 2009 after living and working in South Korea, where ancient traditions of patchwork fabric craft and doll-making are still observed today.
In a craft called Bojagi, industrious Korean women (and sometimes men) used to gather the scraps of fabric left over after a garment was made and stitch these together to make wall-hangings, carrying sacks, blankets and other useful items.
Bojagi is still practised and taught widely in South Korea, but instead of using scraps Bojagi crafters source fine fabrics to be cut up and then stitched back together. Like the Bojagi cloths of old, Temori dolls are made using scraps — old clothes, fabric off-cuts and Postic’s random finds.
In South Korea’s big cities the tradition of doll-making is undergoing a revamp influenced by mainstream Manhwa, a style of cartooning particular to Korea but visually similar to Japanese Manga. Instead of figurative representations of human characters, Manhwa-influenced dolls blend human, animal and robot features, and are rendered with gaudy scraps and decorated with buttons, sequins and glitter. Like Temori dolls, they are typically hand-sewn and individually hand-designed.
The name Temori is inspired by a fictional character in South Korean folklore, Temori Adyashi. In English, Temori Adyashi means “the bald man” (recorded phonetically by Postic as “the bold man”). Temori Adyashi is a bald man with a wrinkled forehead and several animal-suit disguises, which he wears to hide his true identity. Postic’s Temori dolls are interpretations of the disguised Temori Adyashi. Several of them have wrinkles stitched across their generous foreheads, whereas with others Temori Adyashi is so well disguised he appears to have lost his forehead altogether. The Temori Afterlife series is a case in point. This ghoulish family of Temoris has emerged from the grave skeletal, sans forehead or wrinkles, and wearing a mop of matted hair.
Once each Temori doll is made, it is complemented with a nearly life-size, hand-drawn portrait. Measuring an approximate height of 8cm, Temori dolls are small enough to lose in a handbag, and their portrait cards fit snugly into a wallet or business-card holder.
Temori dolls retail at Duka Art at 44 Stanley in Auckland Park (www.dukaart.co.za), Johannesburg, and at Eau-la-la in Menlyn, Pretoria (www.eau-la-la.co.za)