Pidgin Doll Creator Joshua McKenney on His Childhood and an Ever-Changing Identity

For most people, the pigeons littering the streets of Boston and New York City are no more than a nuisance obstructing foot traffic. For Joshua McKenney, they were the inspiration for an entire world. McKenney founded Pidgin, a brand of fine art dolls, prints, and apparel, and he credits the birds he saw while visiting his now-husband Eric as the inspiration for his artistic brand.

At its conception, Pidgin was an avatar crafted by McKenney that became the inspiration for his art. He had mentioned to his husband, who was attending Harvard Law School at the time, that “Pigeon” would be a “cute name for a girl.” This hypothetical girl became a character, one that was meant to be “ethnically ambiguous” and reminiscent of Mary Poppins. Ultimately, the duo decided that the spelling “Pidgin” does more justice to the vision for the brand than “Pigeon,” and thus, Pidgin was born.

Pidgin, defined as a method of “communication between speakers of different languages,” was the perfect moniker for McKenney’s growing portfolio. The brand was a “language of femininity” that the artist used to explore his multifaceted identity.

As a child, McKenney recalls being infatuated with all things feminine — from dolls to fashion, he pored over his own illustrations of ballerinas, mermaids, or figures like Miss Piggy before investing in fashion magazines in high school. Drawing was “the happiest place [he] could be,” and although his mother was supportive of his artistic endeavors, McKenney had little space to express his “extreme love of femininity.” Thus, reading magazines turned into writing hair tutorials or creating paper dolls for them, and McKenney’s artistic niche was realized as doll-making.

Books on doll-making became McKenney’s new literature as he taught himself how to make porcelain dolls that lived their lives on an Instagram account separate from McKenney’s personal page. While simply a hobby at the time, it was an “incredibly huge” workload and once fan art of the dolls began rolling in, McKenney recalls thinking, “There’s definitely something here worth exploring.”

However, growing up around Lancaster, Pennsylvania, or as he calls it, “Amish country,” McKenney recalled a childhood briefly fraught with bullying. Homeschooling sheltered him a bit, but the conservative church the family attended still meant more teasing due to his “gender non-conforming” interests. Yet, despite his mother’s conservative beliefs, she was a “cheerleader” for the artist and his work, likely because her family was full of artists. McKenney’s traditionally feminine non-traditional interests were “less alarming,” possibly due to an uncle with a similar admiration of dolls.

“A lot of people in [my mother’s] family are artistic, but nobody’s really been able to make it their career, whereas I have. So I think she’s proud of that,” he said.

Although queer people of course existed in Lancaster, it wasn’t until immersing himself in groups of artists with diverse identities that McKenney fully realized his queerness. His companion to NYC was a “blind ignorance” coupled with a need to stay in spaces filled with artists as dedicated as he was. From there, the world seemed to open up, as the artist initially pursued a degree in photography and worked in that field before venturing elsewhere.

“[Photography] is way too collaborative for me. I want to create my own world,” McKenney said.

Thanks to his uptick in social media use with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, he did just that. While the dolls had an Instagram presence, McKenney as an artist did not; He credits becoming a personality on-screen with much of his success — one fateful voiceover video reached 1 million views, and from there, McKenney became as much a part of the brand as his dolls were, amassing 5 million followers.

“Storytelling is something that I really gravitate towards, and sharing my personal stories and finding ways to use a story to arrive at a larger message,” McKenney said about what he’s discovered during his last five years of posting content.

While reflecting on the many ups and downs of becoming an artist and entrepreneur, McKenney notes happily that social media has had mostly ups. He notes mostly positive feedback, with the exception of occasional homophobic comments, and is especially fond of messages he receives from artists and even parents.

“I get a lot of really positive messages from parents of queer kids that probably have a similar expression to me, which feels really gratifying,” McKenney said. “I get so much feedback from people about how I’ve inspired them and they’re making art again, or they’re healing their inner child, or forgiving themselves for their own gender non-conforming interests.”

Despite this positivity, McKenney does not forget moments of disappointment but encourages those in similar positions to simply trust the process and know that disappointments eventually “fade into the background” while all the accomplishments remain. Nevertheless, the paths to becoming an artist and becoming yourself are not easy and often overlap. The desire to create is always a guiding hand, and staying true to even unconventional interests is the path.

—Staff writer Madelyn E. McKenzie can be reached at madelyn.mckenzie@thecrimson.com.