Tiny World

Lucy Noakes explains her fascination with all things miniature

“There was a lacquer trinket-box, padded inside and with the lid open, which they used to settle; and that useful stand-by a chest of drawers made of match boxes.”
The Borrowers, Mary Norton

I can still remember the first miniature I ever made. I must have been about eight and my subject of choice was a chocolate cake with a creamy centre with red dots along the top to represent cherries. Of course, the power of memory is a funny thing, and the ‘cake’ no doubt was more like a blob sculpted by my infantile imagination. Nevertheless, the plasticine treat was to be positioned pride of place in my doll house sat between a full jar of marmalade and an uncut bread roll. The miniature, of course, implies perfection, a world full of daintiness, preciousness and charm. However, every small world has an inventor and every inventor wants to make something new.

Today I am writing as both an inventor and a passive observer. My earliest memories of observing the miniature and the yo-yoing of scale and proportion were through following the journey of ‘Alice’ and ‘The Borrowers’. Despite the strong portrayal of the nonsense in both tales, we realise that amongst the slightly mentally challenged Hatter and the ‘human beans’, the jam tarts and the transformed match boxes are all existent in our world. Through this, the miniscule draws us closer but we are unable to get close enough, we can not cross that barrier into the small world. If given the chance to consume the contents of the ‘drink me’ bottle and to shrink to the size of a walnut, the charm would be lost. The beauty of the miniscule is in its un-attainability.

In essence, that is what I love about all things small: in all its sweetness there is a bitter sting. Someone once told me as a comment on my size (I am a teeny 4ft 10) that ‘poison comes in small bottles.’ That was the moment when I realised that the tables have turned. Not long after, I came across the work of Tessa Farmer and I am still bewildered by the nightmarish beauty she depicts. In her installations there are carcasses of all creatures great and small: a swallow, a rat, a fox and battling mayflies are treated as vessels to be captured by mischievous ‘fairies’. These ‘fairies’ are ten millimeters tall and made not from a baby’s first laughter but from tree root and insect wing.

On witnessing Farmer’s piece, 'The resurrection of a rat', I felt torn between amazement, repulsion and again the overwhelming feeling of nostalgia (of capturing ear wigs in empty coffee jars and making mud pies). As observers we become dehumanized, transformed as giants in a Lilliputian universe, bewitched and unable to resist the nightmarish lore of a visit to the deepest and darkest part of the woods. I believe that this is an example of how powerful the miniature can be; we do not know what waits for us until we are too close.

To invent a diminutive existence however is somewhat different to discovering one. To the artist, dollhouse owner or model maker their tiny creation is a universe that they can control or perhaps a place to escape the giganticness of life. For me, it is about trying to capture the magic of child play in everyday life whilst most of us overlook it. I think it is about time that we became just that little bit more curious.

© Lucy Noakes, 2009

About Lucy Noakes I graduated from a degree in Fine Art last year and since leaving I have spent my time making sugar cube houses and miniature realms that I 'find' in my garden which I document through photography. My life long fascination for jewellery (I can not go outside the house without wearing any) has lead me down the path of creating my own, inspired by the imagery of children's literature. Today, it is Tweedledum and Tweedledee's embroidered collar, who knows what tomorrow will bring. www.lucynoakes.co.uk

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