MA WEE HOOS

 

Since childhood I’ve had a fascination with small things. The first prize I ever won was for my garden on a plate at the Campbeltown Show. Fine moss became a well-kept lawn surrounded by the tiniest of flowers or part of florets both wild and from our garden became the well maintained flower beds. The smallest of pebbles lined the stream and the bridge cross it was from used matchsticks. I’ve always found it important within my artwork to retain that element of play, and to find myself once again whittling miniature items of furniture for a dolls house seemed quite natural.

 

This is not the first house I’ve made and furnished. I hope this will one day join others to be part of an exhibition aimed at children. I started building the croft house back in November and modelled it very roughly on my own home. I felt it important to make as much as possible using reclaimed wood and most of the house itself was made using V-lining timber salvaged from a house recently demolished and consigned to the quarry tip here in Tolsta. Although my dolls house bears only a passing resemblance to the old green tar papered roof house I have chosen green for the diamond pattern tiles. Using wood from the old house has also meant that in the smallest of ways that house lives on. Most of the dormer windowed crofter’s cottages had just two windows upstairs, but I liked the idea of a third the light the landing. This also meant that access to the rooms would have to be from both sides. The downstairs from the
front and the upstairs via the back roof. When completed the house will sit on a stand made from the front legs of two old dining chairs.

                                                                           

Scale is something that I do not stick to religiously as the odd sizes of objects serves to give the place charm and an Alice in Wonderland feel. Once again for the furnishings everything was sourced from scrap material. I’ve always found it difficult to throw away anything that might one day be just what I’m looking for in the madness of my creativity. So a pull drawer handle made a hood for the parlour fireplace and a scrap of shaped brass from that same old Tolsta house became the fender. Old fragments of Victorian upholstery were used for carpets as well as the easy chairs. Offcuts from my brother’s new sitting room floor were whittled down to make spindles for the kitchen chairs. A close striped French mattress ticking once again became a mattress but in miniature and the links of old brass picture hanging chain once slightly squashed round become curtain rings. Books will be made from old cloth covered books that were damaged by damp, but like my own house there will be no TV. So far it has cost only a few pence for some wood glue and fine nails. When it comes to other objects such as pots and pans etcetera, there may be some small expenditure, but all it really takes is time, like anything else that’s worth doing in this life. The end result will be wonderful to see, but the journey there is way more enjoyable.