Building Hooper’s
A year ago, I went to my first miniature club show and joined the club. I’ve always been interested in miniatures: I used loved working on a dollhouse as a child, renovated it for my own daughter in the 1990s, and am in the middle of renovating it again for myself. Attending the show last year and being around passionate enthusiasts reawakened this interest, and club activities like field trips and special projects was a fun idea.
There’s an annual “people’s choice” theme contest, where club members build a project and the show attendees vote on a winner. This year the theme was “market stall” and we had a very basic kit to work from. I blew my kit up into a full scale version of Mr. Hooper’s Store from Sesame Street. I started the project about nine months ago, and working on it slowly consumed my life for a few reasons.
I didn’t have the construction skills to do what I wanted. We had a small, plain laser-cut market stall kit and four pieces of foamcore that were to serve as a box mainly for consistent size in the contest. I wanted a storefront and was having a hard time incorporating the kit into the image I had which was essentially more of a room box. I really didn’t have any of the proper physical tools required for the job since my detail-freak nature was insisting on elaborate Victorian baseboard, chair rail and crown moldings and exterior cornice trim, and I was learning as I went while purchasing a saw box, miniature drills (the letter box in the door had to be real), and tiny electric saws and sanders. I was watching YouTube videos on how to cut reverse 45-degree angles on exterior cornice trim by men who could use better communication skills. The bay window arrived four days before the show, which meant I was taking a big chance that I could install it on time.
I studied the lore of Hooper and Sesame Street. Mr. Hooper made birdseed milkshakes for Big Bird? Then there needed to be a miniature milkshake machine and a jar of birdseed with Big Bird’s photo on the counter, and a collection of miniature cigar boxes behind the counter, since Mr. Hooper had one on the show. A framed photograph of the original cast of Sesame Street hangs on the wall immediately inside the front door.
The miniature “Sesame Street Times” I edited for the newspaper machine had the correct date for the miniature show on it (the volume and issue number are my birthday). The above the fold stories are my favorites: the creator of Ernie and Bert declaring they’re gay (since I’m queer) and the arrival of the Wicked Witch from Oz arriving on Sesame Street in a later-banned episode. In my Hooper’s Store there’s a tiny old-fashioned “Brooms for Sale” sign on the bulletin board, and upside-down broomsticks in a bucket in the corner. One of my handmade miniature candles, the thing I make in miniature that I’m hoping to sell in person as a vendor beginning next year (for now I’m only on Etsy) is sort of tucked away on top of the refrigerator.
This is one of the best things miniaturists do: placing Easter eggs in displays. There’s a tiny “Blue Jay” can of green beans on a shelf—my daughter the Johns Hopkins Blue Jay, graduates next month. I may be in the Delaware club but there’s a box of salt water taffy on the shelf that reminds me of my native state of New Jersey and resident state of Maryland. The store address I picked, 125, is a nearby address from the usual 123 Sesame Street on the show, a blend of two addresses from where we raised our kids, and my birthday backwards. A tiny book “JINX” on a shelf is a reference to something a friend and I say all the time to each other; the Easter basket in the window is from her shop, she helped me a lot with guidance during the build and, I should note, she won first place in the contest. She’d gave me some miniature Italian tiles that I used on the front facade of the building, adding the tiny vintage Atlantic bell phone sign that was on Hooper’s original store.
Did I need to hand-flock a tiny Easter bunny and hand-wrap tiny vintage plastic bunnies with gold foil for the shop counter or apply dirt and ash to the wainscoting on the walls to age them or add real dried miniature ivy to the cracks of the sidewalk beside the mailbox and park bench? Not really, but I liked doing it. Making sure the floor appears worn enough or that Mr. Hooper’s glasses are at exactly the right angle on his nose… these obsessive little details are the reason I’ve fallen in love with miniature-making.
Also, there must be humor. Only keen observers will notice the bottles of Jack Daniels on the top shelf at Hooper’s. He works long hours too. There’s an old Coke ad that looks like it’s from the days when the real stuff was still in there, and a vintage cigarette ad of a very pregnant woman that might’ve been okay in the 1970s but wouldn’t exist today.
Although it’s known as the “people’s choice contest,” the competitive aspect was too stressful. I think of it only as an exhibit and was surprised and thrilled to win second place.