It is six weeks to Miniatura, therefore I and other miniaturists are working our collective socks off individually. I have spent the last five days rubbing down porcelain and may have an entire new range of 24th scale dolls. I’m saying may because there are many stages in the process still to be completed. I have poured four at least of each doll and will be happy to get a couple of each at the end if I do. Each doll is under three inches comprising lower limbs with a stringing hook embedded, upper hollow limbs, which have really proved the tricky part, a head and a torso, that’s ten tiny pieces to go wrong for each doll. Getting holes through the hollow upper arms without destroying the upper arms has been quite a thing, I certainly couldn’t have done it twenty two years ago when I first began making porcelain dolls.
The show itself is about to go substantially upmarket. For the first time in its thirty year history, there will be carpet. On the floor, under foot or wheel. It is going to be red carpet, which show organiser Andy is describing as a runner. You don’t have to run on it, you can actually walk or wheel if you’re in a chair. It does not extend behind the stands, so I will still be taking my rug. I am utterly delighted about it. I have been distressed ever since I had the shelves with the 48th scale items on them at the side of my table, that collectors would fall to their knees on the horrid hard floor in pursuit of the bargains on the bottom shelf. You can’t keep a keen collector down, though a few have got up again with no little difficulty. Now there will be carpet underfoot and underknee and everyone will be a lot happier. Whether or not this new development will last more than one show I cannot say, I have been assured it is terribly expensive, so if you have been thinking of visiting the show and haven’t quite managed it this might be the one to go for so you can experience the joy of carpet while it is there.
There are other good things to see as well, once you have recovered from the carpet. The Robersons are back. They are internationally renowned makers of all miniatures wheeled and in metal. Their prams are the best and their metal ‘bamboo’ furniture is unequalled. Do go and have a look. News of artists at this show is on the website www.miniatura.co.uk as is a lovely film of visitors and exhibitors at the last show. I think the film is a real flavour of the show.
I appear to have inadvertently caused offence when I commented on what I saw when I drove past a piece of street art and additions to it. It is in the nature of magically appearing street art that the people putting it there know who did what and when. Viewers only know what they see when they encounter the art.
In writing for magazines about art, I was occasionally asked to write about some topics of interest to artists and miniaturists alike. As miniaturists seek to miniaturise the world and everything in it the subject of copyright is always a hot potato. Another is copying. As artists universally begin by copying, because human beings learn by copying, the point at which they leave off and start doing their own thing is of interest. Another topic is originality. I describe my dolls as original art and have frequently had viewers agree that they are very original when the term doesn’t really mean that at all. Another term I’d like to elucidate is heirloom, which you might take to mean something of lasting value. When you view the Miniatura film, you’ll see people who loved Scottish Miniatura. So did I, not least for the fantastic pavement art which we often used to find in Glasgow. It was done with chalk, frequently as copies of famous works of art, sometimes trompe l’oeil or incredibly realistic and always gone with the first shower of rain. As a comment on the impermanence of the universe, coupled with a chance to try a picture with copyright issues or something of your own utterly experimental and have a clean slate tomorrow it couldn’t be beaten; you could always tell which ones people liked, they were the ones next to the hatful of pennies.
More general chat about art to come on the way to the show, if the carpet has fired your enthusiasm you could click on ‘buy tickets’ on the Miniatura website, wait six weeks and there you would be, right in the middle of art from all over the world, how fantastic is that?
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