Copia

theparisreview:

“I’d always been fascinated by dollhouses, from the time I could remember. Back in New York, I’d begged my father to drive me to the Museum of the City of New York on weekends so we could visit the toys gallery; my bookshelves groaned with volumes covering the history of the medium from expensive adult novelty to design aid to children’s toy. I’d visited famous dollhouses at Windsor and in Paris and had secretly thrilled to the fact that my college was mere steps from Colleen Moore’s Fairy House at the Museum of Science and Industry.

“For those who have not felt the pull of these tiny worlds, it is probably easy to chalk up such passions to something arrested, or some sort of god complex, or maybe just an interest in the small and twee. Through the years, those who have some inkling of my interest have helpfully sent me articles about obsessives who paint ever-smaller landscapes with eyelashes, or medieval artisans who spent years carving biblical scenes in walnut shells, or pictures of elaborate architectural models. These are nice, of course, but not at all what interests me and, I’d venture to guess, those who share my obsession. Artistry is inexplicably bound up with the whole thing—of course it is—but it is the impulse to create a miniature human world that is intriguing, rather than merely the physical smallness itself.”

—Sadie Stein, “Through a Cloud”