Tiny Little Things:

On dollhouses, miniatures, and the stories objects tell.

How did it even start? I remember my mother taking a miniatures class and making the most mouth-wateringly perfect layer cakes and pies with Fimo and bottle caps. She had a tiny punch hook tool and some stencils for beautiful rugs, and then there were hand-tufted rugs, in miniature.

Was it 5th grade? Something like that. A classmate of mine and I and a 6th grade student would all walk together north on Clark Street one day a week after school to go to Mrs. Enck’s house. (Mrs. Enck is a real person. If you’re reading this, thank you for sharing your artistry with us all!) Her house was one of those Chicago Northside gems: a townhouse tucked away between storefronts and apartment buildings. Inside was all dim lights, dark wood, flocked wallpaper, and impressive stairs up to her third floor atelier. She might have even called it that–“atelier.” She definitely said “et voila!” when unveiling anything impressive, which was always.

We made tiny rooms out of foamcore and pearl-headed pins and contact paper. We made bassinets out of old plastic bottles and lace and cotton batting. I think some of these things are still in my mother’s house, along with her tiny rugs and furniture.

Walking 6 blocks on a busy city street in the 1980s was a joy for a ten year old. We would stop into Walgreen’s and get Snickers bars to eat along the way. Clark Street was full of stores and restaurants and places to window-shop.

And Clark Street was full of people living on the sidewalk, too. The rise of deinstitutionalization–of moving people out of often-oppressive and unfair incarceration in mental hospitals–and the rest of the dawning of Ronald Reagan’s morning in America was visible on the street: people hunched over subway grates under plastic sheets with bags of their belongings. Men and women in layers of old clothing looking for cans. I was young. I didn’t understand the structural forces behind what I saw, but I was terrified. With the pure heart and naivete of a privileged kid, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. How could this happen? How could I leave my private school, walk a few blocks to an elegant townhouse to work on making beautiful tiny things and homes of people’s dreams, and in between see the reality of poverty and violence and institutional abandonment?

This is part of the backstory of dollhouses and dioramas, I think: we make a better world in miniature at least partly to right the wrongs of our current reality.

We also make tiny things because they’re fun. Because they’re cute! Because then we feel like giants. There are so many reasons.

But this is my story of what I remember, and the simultaneous thrill and terror of making miniatures in the face of rising homelessness.

And so the chance to make a zine and curate an art show and host hands-on workshops with the Philly Tiny Little Collective (me, Gina Renzi, and Alison Miner) means remembering that making miniatures can also mean addressing major problems, so let’s try to keep making the world we want to see, in cardboard and clay and real life, too.

Carolyn Chernoff

The title of the book "Little Altars Everywhere" could be the name of Jacinta's house, even though her house already has a name, "Double Infinity." Around every corner lies a new surprise shelf of ever-changing collected objects which have caused some people to claim that her house is a museum or that they would like to book a few more hours taking in the remarkable collection.