If you had told Debbie Kesling 20 years ago that she'd be abig name in the teddy bear world, she would've thought you had lostyour bearings. Kesling was a self-described computer geek workingfor IBM.
As a young woman, she had disdained "girlie" skills likesewing in favor of soldering together Heathkit computers. Then, oneday in the early 1980s, the lady from Lambertville, Mich.,discovered teddy bears. Since then, she's become a world-renownedartist making miniature teddy bears, and parlayed her bear-making,writing and computer skills into a miniature multimedia bear empire.
Her "Cybearspace" Web page has existed since long before mostpeople knew the Internet existed; she's since expanded intovideotape and a new book, and she's negotiating a TV deal.Like most subgroups of rampant enthusiasm, teddy bear peoplelive in their own clannish cave world, with jargon, heroes, goalsand strivings that others only can guess at. In the early 1980s,Kesling was walking through a mall in Toledo that had a bear showand she became drawn into that world, deciding that teddy bears'warmth and softness balanced out her Big Blue work world ofmainframe hardware and corporate hardball. Kesling couldn't resistthe appeal of fur and big eyes. She started collecting teddy bears.It wasn't long before she got bored with just buying them.Deciding her obsession needed an upgrade, in 1984 she tried her handat making them. "Being an engineer, I made the first two frompatterns and kits, but they were awful," said Kesling from hersouthern Michigan home, filled with computers, fabrics, stuffing andan aviary of Moluccan cockatoos."My husband handed me graph paper and said, `If you don't likethem, why don't you design your own?' I told him that I couldn't dothat. He looked at me in shock and said, `I've never heard you saythat before.' "That motivated Kesling. "I grabbed the graph paper, designedone of my own, and decided that it was more fun and easier thanworking from a kit," she recalls. And she began making the bearswith the same obsessiveness that she had brought to buildingcomputers years before.While making bears took over her free time, they also intrudedon her work space. Kesling began taking half-sewn teddies to hercomputer-world job: "It was a very stressed and structuredenvironment, and I found it very calming to work on a bear during mylunch break."Kesling's co-workers were intrigued and started commissioningher to make bears for them. She sent photographs of some of herfinished pieces to a teddy bear magazine. When it printed one withordering information, Kesling's bear haven became bedlam. "I gotabout 500 requests for information, and from those, a substantialnumber of orders at $80 per bear. I took a three-month leave ofabsence from work, thinking that I'd return after I caught up onthese orders . . . ."But the orders kept coming and Kesling never went back. "Irealized without another job that I had to approach bear-making as abusiness," she said. "I quickly realized that my price wasn't nearlyenough to match my lost salary, so I raised my prices. I guess thehigher prices increased my credibility as an artist or something,and the orders came in all the faster."But the daily excitement of getting orders turned to dread asKesling began realizing that she'd never catch up. "I becameimmobilized," she said. "I knew that even if I worked as fast as Icould -- all day without having any other kind of life -- I was goodfor only one bear a day. I had over 800 bears on order and I beganwaking up with an upset stomach and a feeling of hopelessness."Kesling thought long and hard about it. Feeling guilty, shesent out postcards canceling all the orders. After dropping theburden of back orders, she came up with a better way. Knowing howlittle she liked sewing and stuffing, she began making miniaturebears -- two inches high or smaller -- and became one of a handfulof premier mini-bear artists.But she couldn't handle the method most bear artists use tofind an audience -- teddy bear shows. She refused to go to them. "Ijust don't have the show personality," she said. "I ended up hidingin bathrooms."Instead of going to shows, she began selling her bears onlythrough her Web page, www.cybearspace.com , making her arguably oneof the few people making money from the Internet. "I like it," shesaid. "There's no pressure to keep up with customer demand or dealwith the retail store owners who think they own you."Kesling also has primed her bear market with a popular columnin the enthusiasts' magazine, Teddy Bears and Friends. "People tellme that they think it's neat that I have this elaborate teddy bearWeb page," she said. "Here's someone whose column they readreligiously, and if they e-mail me, I e-mail them right back. Theythink it's just the coolest thing."She sells her bears in a bizarre but straightforward way:"When I have a bear finished, I send out an e-mail to a mailing listof about a thousand people who have expressed serious interest inbuying a bear, saying, `Here it is, and here's the price.' Then Iput the bear face-down on my scanner, scan it, and post the pictureto my `Teddies for Sale' page. From the moment I hit the `send'button, I've never had it take more than 12 minutes to sell a bear."Not bad, considering that Kesling's bears sell for $170 and up. Sofar, she has sold bears by Internet to every continent butAntarctica.Despite being a top bear designer, Kesling is not particularlyinterested in making them in quantity anymore. She never wasoverbearing, as it were. Now she's down to making from 6 to 24 bearsa year and she's more interested in teaching others how to do it.She sells a popular though pricey how-to videotape through her Website, as well as her new book, "How to Make Enchanting MiniatureTeddy Bears," published by North Light Books ($22.99). More than 750advance copies were sold and prepaid via her Web site. "Some ofthese people placed a standing order back when they first found outthat I was doing it, like eons ago," she said.Isn't Kesling afraid that telling people how to make bearswill spawn so many competitors that it'll drive her out of thebusiness? "I get a lot of satisfaction helping someone else findsome creative part within themselves," she said. "Much more so thanthe creative process itself. I'm way too self-critical to enjoythat. I got a letter from a 60-year-old widow who wrote that Ichanged her life; she'd started making bears and selling them. Ireally like that I've given many artists out there a start."How many trade secrets does she hold back? "I telleverything!" she said with a laugh. "Well, almost everything. I'vekept one secret back, but that's all. Where to get one-millimeterglass eyes on wire. I used to get them hand-dipped by two brothersin Switzerland, but they both died suddenly, like within hours ofeach other. I felt guilty about it for a long time, like maybe I'dworked them to death. Most people wouldn't use this size of eyesanyway, but I won't tell where I get them. It's the only secret Iwon't reveal."Next? After steeling herself for the rigors of book publicity,Kesling's talking to some people in the industry about a teddy beartelevision series.
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