Miniature Museum

[Kells]

I always feel weird about having too many topics I've started showing up on the first page. Like, "Come on, somebody start a new topic and push mine off the first page!" Feel free to tell me to give it a rest, I'm not easily offended.

So the topic of this post is not about museums devoted to miniatures, but rather a miniature museum. Some of you might know that minis have become less than joyous for me for a while. I had way too many of my own, and then when I inherited my mom's collection - which made mine look pathetic - well, it hasn't been fun for me.

I've gotten rid of a few houses and some pretty junky furniture and accessories. In the past I've bought whole lots for a few good pieces, and even an entire AWFUL dollhouse filled with AWFUL contents for $60 just to get my hands on the boatload of Clare-Bell light fixtures in it. But then I end up never getting around to ditching the garbage stuff! So I'm on top of that now, hurrah.

Hence the reason for this post. I've mentioned my plans for a Creole house enough to make y'all roll your eyes, I'm sure. Unfortunately, that thing is in storage and I just can't see when I'm going to be able to get it back into the house. HOWEVER, I do have one I can work on and I am SO EXCITED! It's already here, I have room to work on it, and I'm positively giddy to have a mini project again!!!!

It's a miniature museum. Basically it's a 90" long custom made bookcase. Three stories, each floor 13" high, sits against a wall, indirect lighting front and back. I'll post a floor plan below. I labeled the rooms so you'd have an idea. Most of those rooms are complete, but it's been packed with boxes for so long I'd forgotten what it looked like, lol.

The problem is it never had an exterior. I had plexi sheets magneted onto it, but that stuff has yellowed badly with age. I've tussled on how to create an exterior facade for it. "Tussled" because I have to create an exterior that works with the existing room layout, ARGH! But I think I've solved that problem. I'll post a pic of my photoshop mock-up of that. Feel free to point and giggle because it's a Mulvany & Rogers house photoshopped to within an inch of its life. If ever I needed an example of something beyond my capabilities, that would be it.

"I'll take impossible tasks for $600, Alex." . . . "What is, 'Recreating a Mulvany & Rogers dollhouse?" DING DING DING!

Okay, so it's only for inspiration, and it's all stock components using a lot of the stuff I'm not going to use on the Rosedawn.

Let me just tell you how fun a mini museum is. YAY! We go on trips and I don't have to worry about, oh no, I don't have a place for this vase/painting/statue/pottery/ad nauseam. I get a miniature! Wrap it in a sock, stick it in a shoe in the luggage, off for home.

You find a beautiful set of furniture but don't have a house to use it in? Well, you know how museums set up entire historic rooms as exhibits? I don't have a French house but I have some French furniture. Ta-da! Where am I going to put my colonial bedroom furniture now that I've given away my colonial house? Oh look, the museum has a new exhibit, LOL.

A lot of my stuff is just trinkets and souvenirs but in miniature they pass pretty well! I've never been to China but thank you Chinatown in San Francisco for my Oriental Arts room. Dang, even if I won the lottery I could never afford a Monet. But I can print one! I've become quite adept at miniature framing.

Except for a few pieces of furniture and the majority of my Southwestern arts, most of which I've purchased right on various reservations from the artisans, almost none of the museum stuff is valuable. And I don't care. I love it. Reminders of various trips, it means something to me!

And I don't get bored with it, like I often do with houses. Sure, you can change houses around a bit, but with a museum you can swap out to your heart's content, and there's always room for more when you find that next perfect souvenir. So here's the floor plan as it exists now (subject to change on a whim), and my "Dream on, Kells!" mock-up exterior that took one heck of a lot of doing to match up to the floor plan!

[Kells]

Since I mentioned paintings, here are a few of my favorites. I'm posting these here in case anyone wants to use them, please feel free. Don't worry, pretty sure these are all Public Domain (i hope, since I just had a snit fit about pics borrowed off the Internet!!).

I have loads of these and regularly swap them out (well, used to when the museum was actually set up). But these are pretty much on permanent display. Some I've cut out from museum postcards, like the first one which is in the Phoenix Art Museum. I went to see the Thorne Rooms and fell in love with this regal gal.

The next one is Sly Elizabeth. Love that expression! She looks like she's thinking, "Wanna hear a dirty joke, tee-hee?" I decorated the entire Directoire room around her.

The next two I just love for their expressions. The Medieval-looking lady looks to me like she's thinking, "I can't believe I'm having my portrait painted, what an ego!" The Biedermeier gal has the sweetest smile.

And lastly, this 1930s guy looks so much like my husband! I tell him he must have a long-lost relative somewhere in the past because the resemblance is uncanny. And so of course I had to frame and hang it.

 

 

[Mid-life madness]

I am glad to see some new topics being posted and shared. It is good to get some new blood flowing, and enthusiasm.

[havanaholly]

I think the mini museum is a terrific idea!  You probably want to hit the Sponge Exchange in Tarpon Springs, FL, for the statuary for your museum's facade.

[Kells]

9 hours ago, havanaholly said:

I think the mini museum is a terrific idea!  You probably want to hit the Sponge Exchange in Tarpon Springs, FL, for the statuary for your museum's facade.

That looks like a fun place. I had to look up Tarpon Springs because I'd never heard of it. I haven't been to the gulf coast of Florida, only up and down the Atlantic coast from Key West to Jacksonville.

Statues and busts aren't too difficult to find. Many classical sculptures have been recreated in miniature for the last 150 years or so, when Parian ware offered a cheaper alternative to the masses than hand-carved marble. Which is another thing I love about the museum. It makes me research things!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parian_ware

I keep my eyes open in antique and thrift stores for Parian ware and other unglazed bisque pieces. Many Ebay sellers ask a fortune for them, which is ridiculous. They were mass-produced and I've found many of mine for $10-$20. I shy away from anything glazed, made of resin, or brand new because on a miniature piece the shininess reads as plastic. Because they're unglazed, many of the older pieces have an aged look I doubt I could recreate so well on purpose!

[Kells]

I threw some stuff back into the rooms to give an idea what I'm working with. Although, once I dig all my things back out, these rooms are packed with a lot more stuff than these pics show. Anyway, in asking about display case ideas in the thread below, I also mentioned I'm planning to re-do all the walls throughout in the same color to make the flow better and to showcase the exhibits.

http://www.greenleafdollhouses.com/forum/?app=forums&module=forums&controller=topic&id=43092

That brought up another dilemma. I always displayed paintings in a willy-nilly fashion all over the walls, similar to how museums used to do that. Like the National Gallery in London, and I think the Tate as well? I don't know how well that's going to work with the way they're done now. If I re-do the walls, I may have to just hang things in a row at eye-level like modern museums do it. I'd have to give up displaying 3/4 of my stuff at one time if i went that route. Ugh, choices, choices. What are your thoughts on that? Does anyone even care?

The floors throughout are definitely getting the French limestone treatment though. HATE these parquet floors. Maybe I'll try white-washing them to lighten them up, but most likely they're going to be history.

I'm bubbling over with excitement and ideas, can you tell? lol

[Kells]

Speaking of bubbling over with ideas, I should get doll versions of Kim Novak and Jimmy Stewart. I already have the Portrait of Carlotta. HEE-HEE-HEE!!

 

[havanaholly]

The last time I was at the Ringling Museum in Sarasota the pictures were hung much like yours now.  One thing that's missing is the wee placard beside each frame giving snippets of info about the artist and the painting.

[KathieB]

I like the helter-skelter plan for hanging pictures. The more the merrier! Unless you want to streamline the entire museum as something very modern, I don't see why this display plan wouldn't be appropriate.

[Kells]

16 hours ago, havanaholly said:

The last time I was at the Ringling Museum in Sarasota the pictures were hung much like yours now.  One thing that's missing is the wee placard beside each frame giving snippets of info about the artist and the painting.

Agreed re: the placards. I didn't do it on the painting walls (plural because the American art room was set up the same way) because the placards added more to walls that already had too much going on. I put tiny blank pieces of card on pedestals or on walls next to other exhibits, but I am going to have to print some off. Even tiny, the ones I used were pretty obviously blank!

[Kells]

10 hours ago, KathieB said:

I like the helter-skelter plan for hanging pictures. The more the merrier! Unless you want to streamline the entire museum as something very modern, I don't see why this display plan wouldn't be appropriate.

I think they look fun on the red wallpaper. I set a bunch out on a blank piece of paper though and I'm not so sure it works as well. I don't know why. Maybe because the pattern of the wallpaper behind them helps tie them together.

I'd once thought to do this up as an old Georgian mansion that had been converted into a museum. I set in some columns, wainscoting, more architectural details. Bleh, talk about business. It was all just way too much, that's why I'm going to try to streamline and make things more monochromatic. It becomes a matter of, do you want to showcase the building or the art? I figure the exterior can make the building look good but on the interior I need to focus on the displays.

[KathieB]

4 hours ago, KellyA said:

I figure the exterior can make the building look good but on the interior I need to focus on the displays.

Nothing wrong with an historic building that has been modernized inside --- it would have undergone some severe renovations to install climate control, lighting, etc., in its transformation from residential to commercial. Makes sense that modern features would have been incorporated at that time. I've noticed that some art museums paint the walls in jewel tones that complement the art. (I'm thinking of the Nelson-Atkins in Kansas City, among others). A nice painted wall might do the trick; no need to have a patterned wallpaper. Key the colors to the gallery contents. The galleries don't all have to be the same. 

[Kells]

On 7/4/2019, 4:10:08, KathieB said:

Nothing wrong with an historic building that has been modernized inside --- it would have undergone some severe renovations to install climate control, lighting, etc., in its transformation from residential to commercial. Makes sense that modern features would have been incorporated at that time. I've noticed that some art museums paint the walls in jewel tones that complement the art. (I'm thinking of the Nelson-Atkins in Kansas City, among others). A nice painted wall might do the trick; no need to have a patterned wallpaper. Key the colors to the gallery contents. The galleries don't all have to be the same. 

I'll have to mock up a few rooms with and without color/wallpaper using poster board to see which works best. I am planning to put some color and texture on the rear of the bigger display cases that will be up against walls, not the free-standing ones.

I may do adobe or rough barn-type wood at the back of the displays for the Native American pottery and baskets, but alternatively I may need that space for the Navajo rugs.

The Japanese and Chinese pieces look fantastic against some amethyst-colored raw silk I found. I'm excited about that. :)

[Kells]

Re: my willy-nilly layout, look at the first photo below. Even has the same wallpaper. I'm loving that. Plus the railing has given me ideas.

Second photo is of a fine arts gallery for black and white photos. I mocked up an exhibit I'd like to do: "Celebrating Female Pioneers of Photography." Have separate wall sections for Dorothea Lange, Margaret Bourke-White, and etc. I have so many art books on them and others. Perhaps make it like a special exhibit and another time use the room for other things. We'll see. My mock-up shows how I might do the sections for each photographer (sections in one large room, not in separate rooms).

I'm most likely going to have to go with larger rooms instead of many small ones. The historic room displays are going to have to go. I'll probably just make room boxes of those. I heavily edited the photo at the bottom as an idea for one of those rooms. I already have examples of almost all of those chairs. You know, all those orphan chairs many of us end up with. "It's pretty! I guess I can set it in a corner of a bedroom..." All the chairs set up on a long dais along a back wall, with the timeline and wording above/behind them, I could really see this working!

[havanaholly]

One of our favorite DC museums (musea?) is this one:  https://nmwa.org/

[jaxenro]

I am working on a line of "marble" (cast gypsum dental plaster and marble powder) statues and busts but I fear it will be many months before they are available but I think they would fit perfectly. I am starting with versions of famous works like the Borghese Ares and the Venus de Milo (in bust form) but all based on classical and neo-classical museum examples

[Kells]

3 hours ago, Miniatures in Marble said:

I am working on a line of "marble" (cast gypsum dental plaster and marble powder) statues and busts but I fear it will be many months before they are available but I think they would fit perfectly. I am starting with versions of famous works like the Borghese Ares and the Venus de Milo (in bust form) but all based on classical and neo-classical museum examples

Using marble powder sounds like it would make for beautiful mini statuary. I have marbleized some of my plaster and resin statues and busts with varying degrees of success. Personally, I'd rather have purchased them already looking like marble and left the feathering to the birds (nyuck-nyuck-nyuck).

[Kells]

Still sorting through projects! What a year and a half this has been. No time for miniatures at all.

I realized with all of my blather about this project that I'd never created a gallery for it. Here it is.

 

[Kells]

I have to throw this out there only because I like the story behind it and I hope someone else finds it interesting.

One of the "paintings" I had in the museum - but will be using in a different house IF I CAN FIND IT AGAIN! - is the one at the very bottom below. Madame Adelaide from the court of Versailles. That photo is of a postcard sold at the Phoenix Art Museum, prior to when they cleaned and restored the painting. That bit is important, coming up.

I simply cut that out carefully with an X-Acto blade. Hanging in the back of a room, it looked like an elaborately framed huge portrait. You couldn't even tell it wasn't a three-dimensional frame! I love it. Here is the bit I find interesting though...

When the museum cleaned and restored the portrait, they discovered that years of age had caused a great loss of detail. They were shocked to find that Madame Adelaide was not a pretty young lady. Or rather, that she hadn't asked the portrait painter to "make her look young." She allowed herself to be painted as she was, a sixty-something older woman, wrinkles and all. That was almost unheard of back then! Vanity caused most people to embellish / enhance / obfuscate their perceived flaws. Madame Adelaide did not. RESPECT, GIRL!

Here is a photo that shows just how large the actual painting is IRL.

Here is what people thought the portrait looked like, as it hung in the museum for many years:

And here she is as she was originally painted, age lines and all, after the painting was restored:

And lastly, here is the postcard I cut out and simply stuck onto a wall, including the frame:

[havanaholly]

I LOVE that story!  We old folks worked very, very hard for every age line and gray hair!

[Kells]

2 minutes ago, havanaholly said:

I LOVE that story!  We old folks worked very, very hard for every age line and gray hair!

Ain't it the truth! I am so glad someone likes that story as much as I.