Miniature Rooms

 I love miniature rooms. Not to be confused with doll houses, miniature rooms can be a child fantasy but miniature rooms relate more to adult fantasy and artistry.  

I learned many years ago that, when traveling, it's usually a good experience to visit libraries in the heart of big cities.  There are, many times, big artistic surprises, including miniature rooms. 

A while back, my friend, Christie, gave me the book "Miniature Rooms."  It features the Thorne rooms at the Art Institute of Chicago.

The Thorne Miniature Rooms are one of the beloved exhibits at The Art Institute of Chicago.  Each year thousands of visitors travel slowly down the long, darkened Thorne galleries in ones and twos, peering into the 68 lighted boxes which transport their imaginations to far-off times and places. 

Miniature rooms are three demential and measured in inches.  You can 

buy one or make your own, in case you'd  like to replicate the living

room you grew up in (which I do not.)  Places like Hobby Lobby have

some supplies to get stated but finding just the right tiny books for your

miniature 4 inch high bookcase can be daunting

The creator of the Thorne rooms, Narcissa Thorne, was way, way over the top, miniature room wise.  She and her wealthy husband traveled the world and when she saw a room she loved, she would painstakingly recreate it, using materials she'd gathered as she traveled.  And I'm sure she had lots of tiny tweezers.  And I'm sure none of her treasures came from Hobby Lobby.

Her son called her life long fascination a compulsion.  

Maybe so, but her "compulsion" has enabled thousands of people each year to enjoy her works of art.  

For many years I put out a  version of a Christmas living room in my bookcase.  Crude by Mrs Thorne's standards, but a fun Christmas fantasy.  Last year was the last of the Christmas bookcase living rooms.  I no longer have the energy to move the books.  

 

                                                                    

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