Many miniaturists have mentioned how relaxing and therapeutic it is to quietly get on with crafting their miniature items, whether that’s working with polymer clay, threads and fabrics, wood and card – or indeed any of the other mediums that you skilled crafts folk become engrossed in.
And that’s not just for professional craftspeople, but those who are just making scaled items for their dolls house purely for fun. Their workrooms are often referred to as their ‘happy place’, somewhere they can go to get away from all the stresses of life.
For Kitten Von Mew, who exhibited her mysterious steampunk style house at the Spring Miniatura, she admitted that making items to furnish the house and entering a steampunk miniature modelling competition for a model railway website throughout lockdown, was a real depression lifter for her.
“These projects have been my therapy through Covid. I am a vintage singer in my spare time. And I missed it very much, not to mention the atmosphere of the events I attended. Care homes were a big part of my performing life and it was a wrench to the heart knowing that people were not getting live entertainment at that time. From WW2 shows to Steampunk madness, you don’t realise what an important part of your life something is until you are forced not to do it. It has been a joy to create a miniature world to escape to and learn new techniques.”
As we explored the Hall at Stoneleigh, the atmosphere was friendly and welcoming, which is another positive aspect of being into dolls house miniatures. There are always club meetings, workshops and fairs to get involved in. The social scene is supportive and most people would agree that belonging to a club brings about friendships and fun.
The Small Scale Fiddlers Club are a great example of this. They had been working together to create a display of hot air balloons, which everyone loved. Each one had its own backstory, and over the weekend, they put on workshops for visitors to have a go at making a hot air balloon in miniature for themselves.
Great friendships have been forged with the Rugby Miniaturists over the years. For the Spring Show they looked back over the last ten years and created a display of the competitions they have run each year. These included allotments, a Royal street party, and a Parisian street.
As for the Miniature Needlework Society, despite some troubled times recently, they have pulled through as a club and are enjoyed running another annual competition, this time seeing as they had just celebrated their twenty-fifth anniversary, the theme was ‘An Anniversary’.
Secretary and Newsletter Editor, Carolyn Postgate explained: “Our competition was on any kind of anniversary, which obviously covered the Queen’s Jubilee, the death of Her Majesty and the Coronation of King Charles III, and members have produced some really lovely items.” Amongst the showpieces was a lace wedding dress, a crocheted gown, a framed queen’s head against a union flag background, regal cushions and more.
An organisation that I hadn’t heard of before was The National Association of Miniature Enthusiasts (N.A.M.E.) who had a stand at Miniatura where we met Shirley and Michael Dufton and Linda Grove. The aim of the association is to promote miniatures through education, collecting and building friendships and skills through the sharing of experiences and ideas. A glance at their international website reveals a very active and social organisation that run a host of events on-line and in person at various branches around the world. They have sales, auctions, workshops, tutorials, socials, competitions and lots more. Shirley, Michael and Linda had brought along some of the miniature creations that the group had built.
We stopped to say hello to newcomer to Miniatura, Anne-Marie of LTW Miniatures who makes beautiful, hand sewn 1:12 scale quilts, cushions, bedspreads and patchwork – something she has been doing for the last 10 years. “I love all dolls houses and have always been into miniatures,” said Anne-Marie who after attending the Miniatura Show as a visitor was very excited to have her very first stand there. (See cover photo)
Mum of two, Anne Marie explained that LTW Miniatures has been an organic thing, gradually growing. “I love patchwork and I love miniatures, so I thought, let’s combine them. Also, I have this thing about fabric. I love all fabric and can’t stick to one era or colour palette, so people are bound to find a perfect patchwork quilt to suit their dolls house. I find that thinking about what fabric you’re going to use is fascinating. For me, that’s what you lose your mind to. And thinking about fabric also clears your mind.” Anne-Marie has also been raising money for Rotherham Hospice which is where she works as part of the fund-raising team and adds that raising money for charity is her way of giving back.
We then spotted the results of one of organiser Andy Hopwood’s brainwaves from last year. He was curious as to what people could do with doors as their inspiration. The doors were kindly donated by Petite Properties and given to Lorella at Arty-Folks – a service which works to inspire people recovering from mental health problems to realise their full potential and lead fulfilling lives through the visual arts.
The miniature doors were a great success and inspired many different projects. Lorella explained, “Miniatura offered us the opportunity to develop a project with our service users using miniature doors that helped them explore moving through life in a visual way reduced to a manageable size. This helped them gain new insights, to make sense and let go of their past, and to step forward into a more positive frame of mind.” Visit Arty-Folks page on Miniatura Online to see some of the projects their service users created using the miniature doors.(Pic below, Lorella with neighbouring exhibitor, Andy Spencer).
Being involved in miniatures has proved therapeutic for many people, and this was shown when we chatted to two visitors to the show, Lu Wright and Teresa Proctor, who had both suffered losses recently. Lu had lost both parents, Teresa had lost her dad and then her husband.
Both ladies had been struggling to come to terms with their grief and their loss, and while at the time, they didn’t really feel inclined to go to a dolls house show, they did, and after spotting some dolls house gardens with nothing in – blank canvasses so to speak, both ladies decided to create dolls house gardens in memory of their loved ones. Both Lu and Teresa became absorbed in creating these replica garden and surprised to find how the work was helping them cope with their grief.
Teresa said, “I also got in touch with friends, asking what they remembered about the family members we had lost, and back came all these memories that we were able to add which represented some characteristic of our relatives. For example, Lu’s mum loved foxes, so there’s a miniature fox and a goose, and a rabbit hutch, and buddleias. She loved to sit and have a glass of sherry in the garden, so there’s a bottle of sherry there. We managed to get miniatures of their dogs, and Dad was big into fishing, so we have dragon flies over the pond.”
Lu agreed, adding that the gardens created in memory of their relatives has been wonderfully therapeutic. “I would recommend doing something like a miniature garden in memory of someone you’ve lost – there’s so much you can do, and it’s helped immensely to ease the grief. Really, there is much more to miniatures than dolls houses.”
Have you found comfort in the miniature world? If you have any stories you would like to share comment here or get in touch with us at office@miniatura.co.uk
Photos courtesy of Rob Tysall – Pro Photography.