As a young, starry-eyed student of art history in what seems like eons but was actually less than a century ago, I remember sitting in a darkened classroom as erudite professors intoned on style and meaning. One teacher, with just enough of a German accent to convey seriousness but not too much to obstruct understanding, made a specialty of talking for two hours on the same object. It was perfect bliss.
The way art history was taught in those days was to project fading slides onto a wobbly, slightly scratched screen. Everything was projected at the same size. The Sistine Chapel and Monet’s Waterlilies looked roughly equivalent. So, yes, we saw lots of pretty pictures, but the sense of scale was lost.
That’s something I think about when making miniatures. Union cases (small 19th-century photo boxes) have an appealing intimacy. Most of the pieces I’ve been highlighting in the past few newsletters measure 4 x 7 inches. They’re handmade. There’s only one of each. The size invites you to bring them up to your eyes, closer to your body.
These pieces are available for purchase here, along with other recent work.
In other news…
Want to catch up on past newsletters? Check out the archive!
Please encourage your friends to visit my website and sign up for my newsletter, which is free and comes out once a month.
Please send a note here if you’d like the link to my free Zoom on February 18, 12 noon (EST), when I’ll be interviewing photographer Robert Kalman about his recent series on contemporary America.
