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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May 28, 2008
Flying DUMBO
View from St. Ann's Warehouse
It was only a 15-minute trip via subway to the wonderfully strange province beneath the Brooklyn Bridge, designated as "Down Under the Manhattan Brooklyn Overpass (DUMBO)." Since it happened to be the Bridge's 125th birthday, I probably should have walked across, to St. Ann's Warehouse, which is under the bridge on the Brooklyn side. I went to St. Ann's to install two of my miniature opera sets ("Papageno's Nest," from the Magic Flute series; and "Turandot" from the Puccini opera) in the Temporary Toy Theater Museum.
"Papageno's Nest"
"Turandot"
In the hangar-like space at the Warehouse, quite a few artists were already at work on dozens of charming microcosms. My own dioramas, rescued from long stints in storage, had been picked up from my studio the day before and delivered to the Toy Theater Festival site. "Turandot" was literally in pieces; I had to reassemble much of the Ice Princess's palace, and reattach the princely decapitated heads on their spikes. Such fun.
Afterward, on the way back to the subway, I was delighted to see, in a foliate, offhand plot beneath the rumbling Bridge, another miniature theater, which synchronistically echoed my "Papageno's Nest." Someone had installed a bird-feeder made from a half-pint milk container, complete with a drinking-straw perch.
A miniature at large
Posted by Jane on May 28, 2008 8:35 AM
Comments
Amazing discovery of the arboreal theater--one only a great observer could find! Loved this entry from start to finish. My partner experienced Turandot, her very first opera, in an open-air arena at sundown in Santa Fe, NM. You have taken me back to that magical moment.
Posted by: Claudia at June 1, 2008 6:04 PM
