FUN IN A BOX

"Look at me! Look at me! Look at me NOW!  It is fun to have fun but you have to know how."

Just like the Cat in the Hat has his own FUN-IN-A-BOX which in case you may have forgot houses Thing 1 and Thing 2.  They, of course,  represent pure, unadulterated, carefree mayhem, my idea of that would be something miniature.  (Because this is a blog about miniatures and if you love them then you KNOW.)

I have had for years a small plain wooden box that measures 8 x 10 and 4 inches deep purchased from a miniature shop.  I moved it around a thousand times from pile to pile until finally I found a drawing by Anton Pieck and transcribed that into the box using Creative Paperclay, some wood and a print of a garden.  It has a recessed window and ceiling beams and  'leaded' glass windows with one open showing a garden scene.

"And this mess is so big and so deep and so tall..."

Empty room box...Waiting for FUN.

So it sat around for quite some time longer because I was unclear what to do with it.  I moved it around again from pile to pile. Finally I took it out to play and realized what a great piece it turned out to be because it can be anything. I went to my stash of collected things and arranged several settings you can see here, FUN number 1:

Doll by Carole McBride, bunny by Kerri Pajutee, blocks by Terre Fernandez, flowers by Barb Plevan, plate by Rosey Duck, painting by Linda McBreen

More rooting around in the stash and I got this, FUN number 2:

Chair by Bernhard Originals, Pug by Gudrun Kolenda, Rug by Classic Carpets, Birdcage by Ursula Dyrbye-Skovsted, Plants by Kyoko Mikai, Plates by Dominique Levy,  Stag head and horse pull toy by Linda Master.  

So pull all that apart, dig through boxes and bins and yet another lovely little vignette, FUN number 3:

Chair by Betty Valentine, Book case by Erny Levy, Mandolin by Ken Manning, Vintage bird cage, Bowl by Debby McKnight, Cat by Liz McInnis, Painting by Linda McBreen, Saki set by Ligia, Celadon bowl by Joan Westphal

I am truly impressed with the versatility of a small wooden box. Who knew?  Really, I need to do more.  Maybe a class one day??   I have a frame for it too and just need to slap that on and there's an enchanting little piece to show off a collection.  Let me know what you think.

IT"S COMING !!!!

"Eat, drink and be SCARY"

It's coming.  Halloween IS coming.  I know this because the great, fat spiders are busy building great fat webs.  Huge webs.  The Halloween kind of webs that get in your hair when you inadvertently walk into one.  The kind that are so beautiful you want to press them between two pieces of glass and save the creepy forever.

I know I am rushing the season but I can feel  the spooky coming on.  And for a creator of miniatures that spooky and scary gets into the miniature work.  I am busy at work getting ready for the IGMA Show but I am distracted by all the ghostly things that could be made in miniature.

 

So in honor of the harbingers of Halloween and the Day of the Dead, my friends the spiders, I made up this poor mourning mother pushing her poor baby for eternity in it's carriage.  Unable to accept the loss of her child, she died of grief.  But not before she wore herself thin and wretched walking the baby to the ends of the earth.

1:12 scale Mourning Mother

I know this is not for the faint of heart but the idea was suggested to me by one of my sick customers and I love her for the brilliant idea.  If you really hate this let me know and I'll give you her name.

"Halloween wraps fear in innocence, as though it were a slightly sour sweet.  Let terror, then, be turned into a treat..." Nicholas Gordon

Great mourning outfit, don't you think?

And yes, folks.  IT'S A CANDY HOLIDAY.  What's better than that?
And what's your favorite part of Halloween.  Tell me below.

Yes, she is one of a kind.  Thankfully.

THE POETRY OF MINIATURES

"Sometimes the smallest things take up the most room in your heart".  Winnie the Pooh

How wonderful is it to stumble upon a item of tiny perfection?  Any miniature collector knows just what I mean.  It's that moment when you discover the quintessential representation of maybe even a common everyday item replicated in diminutive form.  And somehow it takes your breath away.  Here is a recent one of mine snagged on ebay for a song.  How the whole world missed it I have no idea. The stars were shining on me that day.

The Perfect Miniature Tea Set on Tray ~ Artist Unknown

 Not everyone gets this. 

 Maybe because they are too busy to stop and notice something that small and that perfect.  It takes a special sort I guess and I am one.  This tiny tea set is wheel thrown clay with a lovely, earthy green glaze.  The pots have perfect fitting lids and the tiny cups and saucers are the true and perfect 1:12 scale.  If you did not see the lemon in the photo, you would not know it is miniature.  It came from the UK and I wish I knew the artist.

 This is Realism in Miniature.

At it's best.  And to happen upon just the most perfect tiny thing is a huge part of being a miniature collector.  It's the thrill of the hunt.  The discovery of, until that very moment, exactly what you wanted.  It might not even be something you were actually looking for but you know when you see it it has to be yours.

 It's poetry you can touch.

The perfect miniature piece or setting or diorama can evoke a feeling or emotion just like a poem.  They are lovely little bits of art to me and many and I think the world needs to stop and have a better look.

I subscribe to a poem a day newsletter by Samantha Reynolds  and a recent one reminded me of miniatures.  With all due respect to Samantha, if I plug in 'miniatures' for 'poetry', you'll see what I mean.  And I thank Samantha for that.  I think she just might agree that in this case, they interchange.


The Dharma of Poetry 

Poetry isn’t meant to educate you
or make you laugh

it isn’t meant to motivate you
improve you
or mend
your heart

it might do it all anyways
poetry is like that
ambitious
for a little guy

but it isn’t the rumble
in the centre
of it all

every time letters are stitched together
into a poem
it is simply
a polite request
to obliterate the fog
that tricks you
into numbness

look
look

there are a thousand ways
to see each simple thing
an eternity
of newness
with each blink.

Tell me your miniature 'poem'.  What's the perfect tiny thing for you?

STEAL LIKE AN ARTIST

"The only art I'll ever study is stuff that I can steal from." David Bowie

Recently I came upon a neat little book called, Steal Like An Artist by Auston Kelon.   Auston maintains that nothing is original and what a good artist understands is that nothing comes from nowhere.  

He's got a lot of great quotes in the book too, like this one:

"Immature poets imitate;

Mature poets steal; bad

poets deface what they take,

and good poets make it into 

something better, or at least

something different.  The 

good poet welds his theft into 

a whole of feeling which is 

unique, utterly different from 

                  that from which it was torn."   T.S. Eliot

You could substitute 'miniature artisan' for poet there and that would explain a lot.

"Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing."  Salvador Dali

Magazine Clipping from 2003

So as a miniature maker the game is pretty much to imitate real life in miniature.  We all do that and probably for that very reason  - to create a world we'd love to see or be in or own.  I ripped this out of a magazine years ago with the intention of one day doing it in miniature. I can't remember the magazine now but hope the shout out to "Patina' makes up for slapping it here without permission. I finally found a Bespaq cabinet that seemed to suit the design. I had to replace the glass with wood panels but in the end my copied design suits the miniature piece. It's not exact but I did steal the original style of the real size piece. 

Somewhat.

 And then.

I followed through with a chair to match this is now an original piece but I still used the swiped design.

.

Painted Miniature Pieces after Full Size Piece

There's more.

Lots of people really enjoy this next style - which is obvious, but I won't mention their name.  They are very touchy and think they invented black and white checkerboard.

Bashed Bespaq cabinet and hand painted plates

This style has been copied in miniature over and over again - expertly and poorly.  I put my pilfered design on another Bespaq piece that has been seriously bashed and you probably wouldn't recognize it. Oh, and yes, the plates are in the same style. I did not think to take a photo of the original but maybe I can steal one.  But that would really be stealing.  Taking photos and plopping them in your stuff without permission is not nice.  Kinda like what I did with the magazine clipping. What could I do? I'm proving a point.

"What is originality?  Undetected Plagiarism."  William Randolf Inge

Speak no evil, hear no evil, see no evil

There are of course those among us who really do steal.  I have seen my own things copied other places.  Things like my dressed skeletons.  I did not think up dressed skeletons.  You can find them in real life in some awful places. Dead and still in their clothes. But I had them in 'original' poses.  Like this one. 

I later saw it ripped off on eBay.  And of course, neither one of us originated the monkeys from which this came. And hey, those you see everywhere.

Some people hang out on other people's websites and copy everything they see. Exactly. 

Sometimes you see something unique and then you see it again and again. 

"We are shaped and fashioned by what we love." Goethe

I have in fact copied full sized original pieces line for line in miniature.  But they were antiques and that would, I think, make them in the public domain.  I am for sure not the only one.  Some of the most sought after pieces are things in miniature based on real stuff that people just need - to evoke a feeling - and in miniature that would be totally unique and 'utterly different'.  I think.

What do you think?   Tell me.  I can take it.

Oh, and all the quotes I used in this blog came out of Austin's book.....

The Purging Project ~ Miniature Clutter, OH NO!!

" Bottom line is, is you don't need it, it's clutter and it needs to go" ~ Charisse Ward

Yes, it is time to purge my hoard of miniature bits and pieces that I have overly collected.  I have been doing this for some time now and still have quite the stockpile. At some point in my miniature creating career I started doing 'assemblages' of things.  That required me to acquire a s**t bunch of stuff in case I might need it the next time one of these projects called me.  So every odd and cheap little thing went into the pile.  I could use this for that and that for this.  Well, you see.  The table below came out of the stash of stuff.

Witch's Kitchen Spell Table ~ Made from the Hoard ~ 1:12 scale

And the creepy stuff underneath !!

I'm not calling myself a hoarder, but... 
This kind of thing can get out of hand.  Its hard to stop, like chips.  In the end I just have too much and I need to weed it out.  It distracts.  It beckons. It keeps me from the hundred other projects in my head.  Lately I have been pulling it out piece by piece and turning it into something else.  My problem is that when I come across a pile of stuff that I am willing to part with I start fiddling with it until it becomes something else.

Stack of hand made books with mouse !

Stack of books with frog and action figure candle

An inexpensive metal tea set that came out of a lot of miniatures that I won on eBay became this spooky, ghostly tea set magically pouring itself.  I have done many of these in the past in different variations and every witch needs a set like this.  This reminds me of the enchanted muggle things in the Harry Potter books. 

Witchy Tea Set

This commercial and not very pretty chair became this one of a kind piece for a 'haunted' place.  It was awesomely fun to do because I sculpted a ghastly face onto the wood of the chair and then painted the spooky tree on pale gray silk for the upholstery.  And I found out that I LOVE painting on fabric. So another thing on my list...

Spooky Miniature Chair

Not every thing turns into a spooky thing - but mostly - because that seems to be a favorite of mine as well as collectors.  I still have a long way to go.

SO...what does your hoard look like?  Tell me.

It's a Pink Poodle Kind of Day

I have been busy making pink poodles the past few days and this is my attempt to avoid that.  Procrastination is one of my gifts.

Since I have already done a pink poodle I kinda wanna move on.   But since I did make one and people loved it and really wanted one of their own I took some orders.  I know what it's like to find something that really tickles you pink and you REALLY want it and are so happy when someone is willing to make that happen.  But now I sorta want to make a black poodle.  And I think I will.

Dogs have been on my mind lately and while this is something new for me I am having a lot of fun just dreaming about all the dogs I want to make. I have some other orders for other dogs too.  And I am itching to get there but as I love procrastinating, I put it off.

But in the meantime its back to pink poodles for me.

Not Your Grandmother's Miniatures !

Gargoyle Bed

Gargoyle Dresser ~ On ebay til 3/4/12

 I expect most miniature collectors don't exactly delight in these altered doll house furniture pieces.  Yet they do attract a select bunch who favor haunted houses and other dark fantasy settings.  God bless 'em. (My peeps.)

I love doing this kind of modification to miniature furniture. It's also a great technique to dress up interiors by adding gargoyles (or angels or animals) to the walls and doorways of miniature constructions.

Each addition is sculpted out of Creative Paperclay™and painted with acrylics. 

Dressed Gargoyle Bed ~ With Mice Infestation.  How about sleeping in that?

Inside every Great Dane is a puppy longing to get into your lap...

Finally finished my Great Dane and he's all covered with 'fur'. I think Ann would have liked him.

Gone To The Dogs

oh yes i did
I have always admired animal artists - especially those who create in miniature. And as an animal lover I have collected many, many 1:12 scale animals over many years from many artists. Seems like everyone loves animals in their settings. Especially cats and dogs. But other than carving tiny animals out of wood for my Noah's ark sets - of which I did hundreds, I never thought to try realistic, "living" animals. Not until an animal artist going under the name of Paizley Pawz created an easy to follow tutorial on making a realistic looking sheep covered with wool with the base a Schleich plastic sheep. I tried it, liked the process and was very pleased with the results.

Sweet, right?

This is a great project to try your hand at furring an animal and I suggest you hop right over to PaizleyPawz and get the tut.

Recently, on an auction site, there was a sculpted Great Dane that was suspiciously like one done by the late Ann Maselli. Ann was a wonderful artist who worked in miniature and inspired many - including me - with her how to articles in the old Nutshell News where she did a vast assortment of all manner of miniature scenes. She was for sure a mentor for many. And her work is, thankfully, still out on the web for all to see.

So this became the perfect challenge for me. I would try and sculpt a Great Dane similar to Ann's and then post it as a tribute to her. I was not sure I could pull it off, but I think I did a pretty fair job. Not bad for a first attempt.

Stay tuned for the finished Great Dane !!