Little Things: The outsized pleasures of the very small

January 21, 2017 9:40 AM

Lori DeBacker wears "+300 reading glasses and a ring on every finger, enjoys creating minuscule cakes — 'faux gâteaux' — and humorously altered, miniaturized versions of famous paintings. 'I love to spoof the masters,' she smirked, showing me a postage-stamp-size reproduction of The Scream in which the central figure was replaced with an extra-agonized ghost. Making miniatures focuses DeBacker. 'My mother always said this would drive her to drink,' she said, 'but I think it keeps me from it.'" [SL Harper's]
posted by mandolin conspiracy (17 comments total)

What an interesting and thoughtful article. Thanks for posting it!
posted by Lexica at 10:01 AM on January 21, 2017

Interesting article, which instantly reminded me of this MeFi; a humorous confessional from someone obsessed with Christmas Villages.

"Richard Has A Christmas Village..."

Note. The writer posted a follow up where he critiques other Christmas Village collections.

It Takes a Village

I love this stuff, but I put it in the same category as high quality art books, too much money and not enough space.
posted by Beholder at 10:28 AM on January 21, 2017 [1 favorite]

This is fascinating! Thanks for posting it. The finely wrought work these artists can do is amazing. I'm in the same position as Beholder, though. If I let myself start collecting, I would be out of a home in which to display it. Cheerful Sigh :)
posted by Silverstone at 10:51 AM on January 21, 2017

Oh man. I love miniatures, and when I started reading the description of the conventions (let alone the descriptions of the tiny! Working! Chandeliers!), my palms started to sweat and my heart sped up.

Thanks for posting this.
posted by joyceanmachine at 11:00 AM on January 21, 2017 [4 favorites]

This is, of course, cute and fun, but I found myself having to resist the whole class and money angle, and the article didn't make it easier, with the mention of twelve-room Victorian houses, parents' country-club friends, 4000 dollars spent on a miniature (and making the "sacrifice" of driving an older SUV), etc. So, hey, rich white people, I guess?
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 11:11 AM on January 21, 2017 [3 favorites]

This is, of course, cute and fun, but I found myself having to resist the whole class and money angle

I think many of them must make extra items and trade for other items. That's the only way that working class people could stay in the game. Might be an interesting way to make spare cash if a person has steady hands and good eyesight.
posted by Beholder at 11:21 AM on January 21, 2017

I can certainly admire the art and craft behind it. I can spend hours* in a museum looking at miniatures, but I can't fathom the obsession.

*especially on a rainy afternoon.

Now botany....
There's a whole world in miniature flowers.
posted by BlueHorse at 11:43 AM on January 21, 2017 [1 favorite]

“You can own everything you can’t afford in full size,” he said, “and you escape into a world most people couldn’t otherwise occupy.”

Shades of The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch.
posted by Belostomatidae at 12:56 PM on January 21, 2017

So, hey, rich white people, I guess?

I dunno, I feel like that's a bit like saying "knitting, rich people, amirite?" because everybody on Instagram is knitting up with three billion bucks worth of Hedgehog Fibers wool.

I am a (probably creepy) adult with a dollhouse and I buy ton of handmade miniatures and make a bit myself. If you want a gâteaux, you can buy a very nice gâteaux at $5, $15 or $45+. You can also upcraft a $5 cake into a $45 cake with about $3 worth of materials, although there is some investment in materials (polymer clay is inexpensive.)

The materials cost to make high-end stuff is low, and the learning is very accessible on YouTube, etc. As with many hobbies, the real class demarcation is on leisure time. This shit takes approximately forever to make, and there are many steps to a finished product. The time to do that is the luxury, which is why I have not touched mine is like 9 months.
posted by DarlingBri at 1:18 PM on January 21, 2017 [11 favorites]

She doesn't live on Park Avenue. Big old houses in small Mid-western towns are not terribly popular with the extremely rich.
Can't Metafites just read the posted piece without having to chime in about yadadyadyad?
posted by Ideefixe at 6:24 PM on January 21, 2017 [4 favorites]

I love the idea, but with my ability to knock stuff over and lose it, it would be a vale of tears for me. So I stick with my old tin toy robots.
posted by Samizdata at 6:37 PM on January 21, 2017 [1 favorite]

Second picture is a 12th scale Dutch baby house (probably Bespaq, $90), which means the furniture in it is 1:144 scale.

(Samizdata: blobs of museum wax are great for holding this stuff in place, otherwise a stiff breeze and it's gone).
posted by Leon at 1:09 AM on January 22, 2017 [1 favorite]

Great post! I want to make stuff like this when I retire, polymer clay is my favorite thing. When I was a kid, I had two doll's houses, one at my mum's house, and one at gran's, where I lived almost half the time. The one at gran's was not as beautiful as a house - it was just a standard Lundby house, but together, gran and I would go and buy miniatures for it, so the furniture for that house was amazing. Later, when I had kids, they got my pretty house and I bought miniatures every time I travelled for business - in some countries, you could still buy really nice pieces in ordinary toy stores for reasonable prices when my girls were small, I don't know how it is now.
Till recently, I still had a huge box of stuff for making tiny things, but I gave it away because I never used it. Reading this article makes me look forward to retirement.
posted by mumimor at 12:03 PM on January 22, 2017 [1 favorite]

I grew up in the next town over from Palatine, IL, where Jason and Jacqueline Getzan* from the article live. It's a pretty average middle-class suburb. And the chandeliers the Getzans make range from under $100 up to the These people are not rich, this is just their quiet little escapist outlet.

*The article has Getzman, but the fact-checking team at Harper's appears to have fallen down on the job.
posted by me3dia at 1:42 PM on January 22, 2017 [1 favorite]

This reminds me of the wonderful Millhauser story, In the Reign of Harad IV.
posted by Miss T.Horn at 2:34 PM on January 22, 2017

Shameless plug for my friend linda_plays who makes tiny, intricate, retro, living rooms.
posted by Damienmce at 1:41 PM on January 23, 2017

Thanks me3dia, I googled them right away and failed. They seem like amazing people, and I'd love to own some of their artworks
posted by mumimor at 2:26 PM on January 23, 2017