Building Nature
Last year, I wrote about building my first miniature from scratch: a reproduction of Hooper’s Store from Sesame Street. It was an unexpected honor when it won second place at the miniature show. On Sunday, I was again surprised to win the first place blue ribbon for my Chesapeake Bay Camping & Crab Feast project at the miniature show. Each year, there’s a theme. Last year, it was a market stall; I “kit busted” my stall into the larger shop. This year the theme was outdoors. I was inspired by many years of camping trips as a Girl Scout and Girl Scout leader and my years living on the Chesapeake Bay and catching and eating Maryland crabs.
How to capture and represent nature in miniature was a challenge. I incorporated photography since I have hundreds of Chesapeake sunset photos; I found a curved clear acrylic frame that’d be unobtrusive and could serve as a partial background. Full natural landscaping isn’t something we see often in a dollhouse-heavy world of miniatures, so I looked to the train miniatures industry for inspiration— luckily there’s a fabulous annual train show nearby where I went and paid close attention to how terraced hills are achieved, picking up some of their yard sale trees, bushes and grass materials in a variety of colors and textures. Layering and tweaking those elements took countless days.
The project would be a gift for my daughter Faith whose St.Patrick’s Day birthday was just prior to last week’s show. The only kid of my four born on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, Faith grew up competing in 10 World Series of Birding competitions and after graduating from Johns Hopkins now works as an Environmental Science consultant. I built the scene to include a tent that sits on a hill (formed from strips of plaster over newspaper); inside the tent are one-inch scale miniatures of birding books, binoculars, muddy boots, a Hopkins pennant, and other tiny Easter eggs customized for her, including the hidden Blue Jays Hopkins mascot. My miniature club bestie (who won first place last year) helped by printing miniature replica stickers of Faith’s real guitar and since they’re sorority sisters, a pillow with the Greek letters on the tiny sleeping bag.
I’d never worked with creating “water” before and it was a challenge, but I was able to get the appearance of the Chesapeake reasonably close to what I wanted near the shoreline, where I also added dried plant material from real phragmites to place near a miniature Great Blue Heron. The crab feast picnic table was fun to create; the newspaper front pages under the crabs are from the day Faith was born and I love the tiny Old Bay containers and miniature paper towels. Probably my favorite in the vignette is the miniature campfire; I built it from a flickering tea light and simple rocks, paint, glue and paper. A tray of S’mores added whimsy to the scene. There are also flickering lanterns inside the tent which provide a neat lighting effect.
From conception to contest, it took a year to complete the project, which sits on an old cookie sheet and a vintage Coca-Cola wooden crate. Faith hadn’t seen it until Sunday. Watching her walk in and discover all the wonder of its tiny elements was the best part. Similarly, I built a miniature veterinary clinic for my veterinarian daughter as a Christmas gift. I think in these recent years of embracing the passion for miniatures I’ve had in my heart since childhood, one important element for me is emotion— I have to care in some way for the creation, otherwise it isn’t worth the unending hours that go into the endeavor.
As I walked the project with its shiny new blue ribbon to the car, my eyes filed with tears. I couldn’t call my mom to tell her I won. A few members of my club comforted me, saying, “she knows,” and “look for the sign.” When I got home, there was a perfect pink flower on her Christmas cactus, and I knew that was it.