Button-sized eggs and teapot cities: A peek into the big, wide world of miniatures

Miniatures are huge right now.

Social media feeds are chock-full of people painstakingly re-creating tiny kitchens where they may cook button-size eggs over the heat of a tealight. Creators give tours of carefully crafted homes decorated with handsewn, postage-stamp-sized pillows. Some will swatch lipstick and eyeshadow from palettes too small for even Barbie dolls to use. The phenomenon has also spilled into the mainstream, with stores selling popular Miniverse and Mini Brand’s kits for hobbyists to dabble in the miniature arts.

The pandemic is largely responsible for this talent boom, according to the miniaturists themselves. Artists on lockdown began showing off their to-scale creations and sharing their techniques. The resulting talent feedback loop has led to miniatures that are more detailed and thoughtful than ever.

“I made my TikTok in 2020 like everyone else did. And that kind of blew up,” said miniaturist Amanda Kelly, the first artist-in-residence at the Mini Time Machine Museum of Miniatures in Tucson, Ariz.

Kelly’s work incorporates the tiniest details, like miniscule coffee rings, balled-up tissues the size of pinheads and teeny banana peels.

But what’s behind the miniatures boom? Why is social media so smitten by a working scaled-down sink, or books with printed words too small to read with the naked eye?

Why miniatures are so compelling

The answer is as complex as some of the miniature-scapes themselves, according to experts and miniaturists.

“It’s definitely about control,” said Kelly. “It’s like when you play The Sims or some sort of simulation game where you have control of everything that happens in this little space, in this in this little world that you’re creating.”

Susana Martinez-Conde, a neuroscientist at the State University of New York Downstate, agrees — and adds that there are other factors at play. For example, humans enjoy taking in information-rich scenes, like the ones in I Spy or Where’s Waldo books.

“They have a lot of visual content with small details encapsulated in that reduced amount of space. And that is kind of like candy for our visual system,” she said.

And in our distraction-filled world, she said that getting to watch someone painstakingly craft the scenes is mesmerizing: “We’re almost craving deep attention, especially now that we’re pulled in so many different directions.”

Don’t count out cuteness, either.

“Everybody just loves little things,” said Ashley Voortman, miniature artist and author of Creepy Crafts: 60 Macabre Projects for Peculiar Adults. “It’s like cuteness aggression. It’s just so adorable you want to squeeze it.”

Telling a story

Most of the time, there are no humans in the art, just the relatively giant hands of the creator. And there’s almost always a backstory.

“You can slow down and think about the little stories and you can get lost in creating what world you want,” Voortman said. Her stories are usually of the macabre variety, like an elaborate scene she made about an “unethical” mental health facility, because, according to her, “an ethical one wouldn’t be very scary.”

Montreal-based artist Marina Totino‘s tiny scenes tap into her love of nostalgia, particularly from the ’80s and ’90s, and transporting the viewer back to childhood. “I fell in love with just creating spaces that once existed that will never exist again,” said Totino.

Her work includes a shoebox-size video store with hundreds of DVDs. Its brick walls are tagged with graffiti, and a busted-up “Sorry we’re closed” sign lies at the bottom of the front door. Mirror effects make its shelves of videos seem infinite. “May the core memory of renting movies live on forever, as far as these hallways will lead,” Totino wrote in her blurb about the piece on her website.

From craft to fine art

The scale of these projects — usually at a ratio of 1:12 — makes them a special kind of challenge to construct.

“It takes so long to build miniatures.” said Totino. “It’s such a time-consuming medium, and I superglue my fingers together all the time. I drop things on the floor, I lose things because they’re so tiny and then I have to restart.”

Totino analyzes the shapes of objects to try to re-create them, like the curves on a corded phone that she carved from wood.

Voortman starts her projects with a vague idea of what she wants to create. “I make miniatures out of a lot of used stuff, so I just would pile all my trash in front of me and then just start putting stuff together,” she said.

Using craft supplies and the junk she collects — like old soy sauce bottles, trinkets and lids. — Voortman has made a tiny haunted house out of a matchbox and an abandoned city on a teapot.

Building these miniature masterpieces takes skill and perseverance. “You have to be like a renaissance person. You have to know wood crafting, you know. You have to know how to work with found objects,” said Kelly.

Mini DIY

The miniatures community is a welcoming one, according to creators. There are a host of them who encourage one another online and meet up at miniature shows, conventions and sales, which are held across the U.S. For those who want to get in on the trend, Totino said there is no wrong approach.

“It doesn’t matter how perfect your miniature world is. It could be made out of paper or cardboard and it’s still a way to be creative and make art and live in a space that is only yours that no one else can go to,” said Totino.

“If miniatures are something that you want to start making, I would highly encourage you to just go, just get into it,” she added.