Manic Mermaid Tara Dalessi is a Kauai-raised seamstress, baker, activist and all-around nature lover who has started sewing Waldorf-style dolls. She picked up the technique in Washington. The dolls are made using European sewing techniques and are meant to spark creativity in children.
And while there are many who make these dolls — in various traditional shapes and sizes and from natural materials like cotton and wool — Dalessi added her own unique tweak to the process. She makes them into mermaids. She also makes custom orders. Send her a photo and she’ll replicate the person in the photo as a doll, even down to the shoes, hat and accessories.
Recently she took a break from sewing, skating and being a mom to chat about the dolls, and life on Kauai.
What made you decide to make Waldorf-style dolls, and how do they help young kids?
Around November of 2006, I was attending a mamas’ group in a small living room in Spokane, Washington, and I was able to make one. It was a baby Bunting 6-inch and I was with a group of about 30 other women, sewing and breastfeeding our babies. Another month later the woman leading the class offered a private class and I attended. We made a 15-inch dressing doll. I made a replica of my 6-month-old boy Koa, with his crazy blonde, curly hair.
Utilizing the Waldorf standards of not sewing faces on the dolls allows the child to use their own imagination. They get to decide if the doll is awake, asleep, crying, happy, etc. (It promotes) imagination growth.
Why make them as mermaids?
I don’t think they are traditionally made that way. I make them because I love them. Personally, I believe that some of us are mermaids, and I choose to be one. I am a mermaid, my daughter is a mermaid. Modernizing the craft has brought many Waldorf-style mermaids into existence.
You do other projects. What’s on your table now?
Resizing down a shirt for my dad. Patching holes in my daughter’s pants. Many different dolls in different stages. I make hair towels also. They’re towels that you can secure so they don’t fall off and your shirt doesn’t get wet.
I have a wedding cake and a baby shower cake due on the 27th as well. I started baking when I was 16 at Auntie Anne’s Pretzels. My first real baking position was at Blossoming Lotus, though, before it moved into the dragon building. I was 19. Then I went to culinary school and then I worked at Hanalei Bread Co. for four years.
What was it like being raised on Kauai?
I was lucky. My dad moved here before I was born and I enjoyed this island more than I can ever say. I also lived on the mainland in Portland, Oregon, and Spokane, Washington. I’ve been home for five years with my husband and two kids.
What’s your favorite part about living on the island?
Being home. That feeling of contentment. Seeing everybody you know and having those mini-connections daily. That doesn’t happen the same over there, on the mainland. Access to fresh…everything — food, water, ocean, fun.
What do you miss about Kauai in the old days?
I do miss the days of no traffic. Access to some areas are now blocked. There used to be stores like Kojima’s and Ambrose’s. I miss being young in general. I don’t have much tanning time these days.
It’s hard to see all this new, modern, bigger stuff happening on Kauai all the time ‘cause it will end up like some other place. It won’t be like Kauai anymore. Progress is because of all the people coming to Kauai, and I get it. And it sucks, even though I’m included in that. I moved home five years ago.
I could have stayed away for the sake of less people being here. But Kauai called me home, as she has done my whole life. When I was away, I never could think of any other place, ever. My heart stayed here and waited for my body to come home. I find a lot of the people who move here felt a calling. Hopefully all those people are caring for the land and its people also.
You’re a mom and the Manic Mermaid. What made you join roller derby and why do you love it?
I wanted to join in Spokane, The Lilac City Rollers, but I didn’t have health insurance. I started watching the Girrz (Kauai Garden Island Renegade Rollerz) in 2015 and after quitting my 2 a.m. job, I finally got the chance to have an evening activity again. Practices are at 5:30 p.m. on Thurdays and Sundays, so working at 2 a.m. didn’t fit that equation.
I only just joined this last boot camp training in October 2018. I get to finally skate again and feel that flying sensation, and have a great time with the other skaters and fans. Learning the strategies and working in groups is a lot of fun and keeps me on my toes. I get to workout my body like never before. This is the best shape I’ve ever been in.
We also do junior roller derby and I’ve volunteered to help the coach do her thing and show the kids a great time, and teach them skills and great self-esteem. The coaches are amazing. I feel blessed to be able to work with them and teach kids and have fun. My daughter has joined as Majestic Mermaid. She’s loving it.
You’re an activist. Why is that important to you?
I grew up in a family that cared about the planet and animals and the people, so I’ve been an activist forever. As young as 12 in Portland, Oregon, (at the) state building, I was leading protests. It was around 1994? I remember yelling to a huge — and I mean huge — protest crowd: “What do we want?” They would yell: “Freedom!!”
I was lucky to get the sense of Kauai in me from birth and the love of the planet from the people around me. I learned that we rely on it and it relies on us. We all are intended to steward the land, just as the animals move the earth and change it and alter it, like a worm in the soil or the birds with seeds and the bees with pollen.
We are meant to care for the land and we have gotten past that. We’re all just caring for technology instead.
More recently my sister has become involved, enveloped in fact, with helping to protect the aina, the planet, and especially Hawaii, Kauai in particular. She even ran for state House, Fern Rosenstiel, now Holland.
She makes me aware of the issues that she’s passionate about and I often agree with her, and so I become passionate as well. Mostly in a passive way, unfortunately. I should take more time to do what needs to be done.
You directly do your part, though. You clean up beach debris, right?
I pick up at beaches just ‘cause it’s the right thing to do. I make the kids clean them up as well in order to earn rewards. Rewards like each kid has to pick up 100 pieces of trash on the beach while we’re there, and then after dinner they can choose a dessert. They may have gotten the dessert anyways, but I want them to clean and feel that feeling of doing it and knowing it’s right.
I loved the land when I was little. And now I have littles of my own, and I want them to enjoy it and care for it. And I want their kids to care for it. I want to teach them how to be connected to the land and the people around them. I want to show them real life separate from the consumer society. So many people truly want to just live. We don’t need so much extra. We don’t need the latest and greatest with a throwaway mentality.
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Jessica Else, environment reporter, can be reached at 245-0452 or jelse@thegardenisland.com.
