provides a treasure trove of practical techniques and ingenious approaches. In this captivating guide, noted artist
Jane Freeman shows readers, step by step, how to use modified kit components, and found and handmade objects to create intensely detailed miniature constructions.
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October 16, 2007
Me, Myself and Ikea
Every so often I go to Ikea, in Elizabeth, NJ for picture frames. I assiduously avoid weekends, when the free buses are jammed to standing-room. Nevertheless, last Friday morning the bus was almost full, most passengers bound for the Jersey Gardens Mall. I brought my Walkman and a box of earplugs, arms against a sea of cell phone troubles: “What! Didn’t you realize you have to assemble everything yourself?” and other incessant shopper-babble.
After disgorging ninety percent of its passengers at the mall, the bus arrived at Ikealand just before 11. I had two whole hours before there’d be a bus back to NY. My first stop was for coffee at the hangar-like restaurant. The place was still empty, though by noon it would be crowded with meatball aficionados. I got a cup and sat at one of the svelte blond tables. The sweeping window-wall showcased a Newark Airport panorama, with a plane scudding in every minute or so. The sky was as wide and blue as Wyoming, with a cumulus coif swathing the horizon.
Coffee having been quaffed, I meandered through the vast showroom of model kitchens, baths, bedrooms (master, juvenile, nursery) as if I were in a dollhouse or movie lot with numerous three-sided sets exposed all at once. I relished the Scandinavian simplicity, not only because I’m one-eighth Swedish myself. Then I went to pick out a couple dozen picture frames and found the cashiers, about a mile away, in a laned realm like a bowling alley beyond the towering ranks of furniture stock.
Then outside to the bus. When a jet took off shockingly near, I ducked. I flashed to the plane that had coasted slowly down West Broadway as I stood with my grocery bags, amazed. I registered details of the sharkish underbelly and the faces in oval frames. The absurdly low jet levitated fractionally, adjusted its aim, and sped forward, disappearing seconds later into the tower. The jet was like a hook in the head of a giant silver fish. Its brand was like the shadow of a raptor’s wings. An explosion, and fire, and the pure blue sky was filled with the confetti of fractured glass. Then, inevitably, a hundred days of rancid, unbreathable smoke.
I yanked myself back to the present, focused on the meadows of churning grasses, the sprigs of yarrow against a backdrop of industry. Around Union City there was a sign on an overpass: “Welcome to Northern New Jersey, Embroidery Capital of the World Since 1872.” An unexpected caption to the cantata in my ears. The bus barreled into a long dim tunnel of tonnage--all trucks and buses--then burst into sunlight again, and the world reverted once more from horizontal to vertical.
On the subway there was an African king in embroidered robes, with a great covered bundle to peddle. A female beggar limped through the car trilling, “No matter what they take from me, they can’t take away my dignity.” I got off at Canal. On the platform a cheery, one-legged man in a wheelchair hurried forward. He gave the conductor a sweet, knowing wink. The conductor held the doors for him, smiling. It’s good to leave town once in a while; it invigorates perspective and freshens home.
Posted by Jane on October 16, 2007 7:12 PM
