I used to do miniatures – scale interiors, mostly at the 1:12 scale – that is, inch to a foot scale. Some shadowboxes of single small rooms, a couple of buildings at that scale, which if they are houses – are pretty large. I got into this hobby and began building a collection of miniature elements when I was in college and making dolls for a lovely little shop in Montrose, California. The owner of the shop paid me, week in and week out, for five 12^th scale dolls in various costumes (some to specialty order). I wasn’t the most accomplished and artistically-realistic miniature doll-maker in that part of California – but I was one of the very few practicing then and there, and that shop was one of a few catering to such enthusiasts. I made the heads, hands, and feet from a home-made composition of soda, cornstarch and water, painted with hobby paint, and hair made out of ordinary sewing-thread and white glue, set on a bendable armature of ordinary light-weight wire; the body wrapped with thin strips of sheet fabric, usually torn from outworn bedding, and then fitted out with hand-sewn clothing … no, those dolls were nothing much artistically, but they sold, reliably over half a decade. Kay Kelley, of Miniature World paid me $25 a week for five dolls, sold them at $10 each … and there I had enough from working at a craft to pay all expenses for my college education, enough to splurge on a summer in England after I graduated. Some of the money I earned at this went straight back to Kay, of course. I should search out the very first item I bought there – a little wooden silverware box, fitted out with half a dozen pot-metal forks, knives and spoons…

But I carried on with the miniature hobby for years – all the time that I was overseas. I had an enormous kit for a Victorian-style house when I was in Japan, when I had a tiny flat out the POL gate and the Daughter Unit was a baby. I remember working on it, with her in a sling against my chest, while I painted the exterior with one hand … when I PCSed from that assignment, the moving crew had to take it out through the kitchen window – it was too large for the door. (I sold that house, still unfinished, to another NCO, three moves later, to a family who wanted it for their daughter.) I went on building shadowboxes, fitting out kit structures and furniture for another sixteen or seventeen years. I went to a couple of miniature conventions, when at home in the states and I could afford to splurge on quality items … but somehow, it all stopped when I bought a house – a full-sized house of my very own, and somehow, the miniature building lost interest for me. I can only think that my enthusiasm for miniatures was a way of building a portable dream house. Once I had that real home, all my energy, time and money were focused on it, rather than sublimating all that into miniature structures. There wasn’t much difference in the concepts, by the way – only that the building stock was larger and the tools heavier.

But of late, I’ve been tempted again – and this week, I gave into that impulse and bought a miniature kit – a 1:24 kit, that is a half-inch to a foot scale. I have to unlimber all my old mini-building tools – the claps, blades, saw and all. I’ve started assembling the furniture, and I’ll take it in easy stages. It’s quite an elaborate set-up for all that it won’t take up too much space: a three-story Japanese house, fully furnished, with a pavilion, koi pond, trees and garden, mostly of about two million laser-cut wood pieces, with a paper overlay for some details, and a bag full of beads, wire and findings. Oh, and tiny electric lights, for the whole thing is set up to be wired for lights. I plan to do a bit of kit-bashing, painting some things different colors, and to route out space to pour resin and create the fishpond with tiny carp modeled from air-dry clay, and add more decorative elements and food items modeled from Fimo and air-dry clay. Yes, I have been watching too many YouTube tutorials about how to create realistic waterways and outdoor vistas…