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Dollhouses and Miniatures — at the National Soaring Museum

Have you been to the National Soaring Museum lately?

*If you haven’t been lately (or at all), think about a trip up Harris Hill to take a look. I think you’ll get some pleasant surprises.

*The annual dollhouse and miniatures show that used to sparkle up the winter at Curtiss Museum has migrated over to the Soaring Museum, and we stopped in to see it on a February Saturday.

*We’ve been regulars at the show, and even sometime exhibitors, since the 1995-96 season, so we encountered some old friends, as well as making some new acquaintances.

*Right in the lobby we found pieces from the late Marie Rockwell’s collection, such as a southwestern “adobe” house complete with cermaics and needlepoint carpets in Navajo-style designs… an exacting and delightful attention to detail.

*Most of us are accustomed to dollhouses for play, but miniaturists work for showing, rather than playing (though making and showing are forms of play themselves). Scott Hopkins’s camper is open on one side and the top for better viewing. It even includes an outhouse behind the camper.

*Sue McGoun created an amusing upstairs/downstairs house, where the downstairs hosts a pair of stereotypical 1950s parents in 1950s setting, while the upstairs is populated with, and furnished by, today’s 21st-century teenagers.

*Each item shines on its own merits. Stacy Clark’s instricate rosewood “chinoiserie” furniture (exhibited on its own) is inlaid with mother-of-pearl. Pam Burton’s Halloween House was created in a lengthy labor of love. Ron and Shirlee Cornwell created a large farmhouse, but it springs to the fore because of the outdoor Christmas display.

*Long-time area residents might recognize Fritz Meyers’s piece – a large-scale model of the Atlantic gas station in Big Flats, complete with double service bay and two pumps out front.

*Will Parker creates unusual eye-catching model train layouts, including an X-scale figure-8 with windmill and stone cottages – the more you study it, the more you find, and the more you lose yourself in Will’s little world.

*And that’s just (some of) what’s in the lobby! Downstairs there’s a large mansion by Joyce Merletti, and a “community” of three mansions and three cottages, from Marie Rockwell, Lillian Elwood, and Helen Keeton. Undergoing some work in the restoration shop, but accessible for viewing, is a fully-furnished four-story mansion with excellent sightlines through its chock-full interior.

*As if that weren’t enough, there’s a small but impressive collection of Eastern Orthodox icons “written” (that is, painted) by Joyce Merletti. And in the upstairs mezannine hallway are a half-dozen nature paintings by C. F. Lawrence. In “All But Forgotten,” a blue jay perches on a dilapidated “park bench,” surrounded by overgrown grasses and under an overcast sky.

*The female cardinal in “Fallen Silent” perches on an old bell, and even without touching it you can feel the rust on the bell.

*So why is all of this at the Soaring Museum? Is not completely new… NSM has a history (and a future) with quilt exhibits, for instance. The board and new director Trafford Doherty (like me, a former director at Curtiss) are looking forward to more changing exhibits with more variety, connecting the place more directly with the local community, on top of being what I believe is the only soaring museum in the western hemisphere. And more about THAT in a future blog!

Holiday Miniatures Show Returns to Curtiss Museum

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Twenty-four. The number of Christmas Eve. The number of days “until,” once December starts. The number of little windows on the Advent calendar, until the big one is opened.
Twenty-four. The number of miniatures shows at the Curtiss Museum, ushering in the holiday season. It’s part of our regional holiday. People who were not year born when the first show opened (in the “old” museum) can now bring their children.
That original show was a dollhouse show, but now the exhibit also includes models, miniatures, and antique toys and dolls.
Roll into the lobby, for instance, and you’re seized by Lanny Wensch’s large sawmill operation, circled (ovaled?) by a garden-scale railroad. To its left is Jim Sladish’s little Christmas village, with its two tracks of trains and Santa sleigh circling overhead. To the sawmill’s right is one of the late Carroll Burdick’s miniature carousels, music and all.
Each of these is operational; the trains run, the carousel circles, Santa’s sleigh flies, the sawmill equipment does its thing. They also show some of the range of this exhibit. The little stores and houses of the Christmas village are mostly available commercially, as of course are the trains. Likewise the sawmill’s big train and tiny engines are commercial products, but the sawmill and its setting are home-built. There’s also some repurposing. The burly millworkers started out in life as action figures of the “He-Man” type. The carousel, at the other end of the range, was largely constructed from scratch.
Range and variety are hallmarks of the show. Still in the lobby a case of large electric trains sits next to a case of paper dolls from the 1920s. A few steps away are a fleet of die-cast airplanes, and an enthralling n-gauge model railroad layout.
Out of the lobby into the main museum are case after case of dollhouses – some commercially made, some scratch-built, some assembled from kits, and some “kit-bashed” – using the kits as starting points, and going wild from there. Some are actually toys, others are works of artisanship, some are perpetual-motion hobbies, always improving but never quite finished. Many are homes, some are farms, some are stores.
And some are not true dollhouses. These are the room boxes, about the size of the proverbial breadbox. Room boxes are artisinal creations, usually in fact focusing on a single room, be it hat shop, colonial kitchen, or comfy living room.
Some of the doll houses and miniatures go back to the 19th century. Others were being finished just as the exhibit case was closed.
Running the gamut from mid-19th century to mid-20th century is a substantial exhibit of toys and dolls (see if you can find Donald Duck, and Charlie McCarthy). Our family exhibits a pressed-board toy store – a gift to my father, in the Great Depression. There are the inevitable war toys, the toy airplanes, the blocks and bowling pins. Take a look at Eva Stickler’s 19th-century doll collection. She cut material from her own dresses to make dresses for her dolls.
Of course you can always wander away to look at the airplanes, motorcycles, workshop, and other permanent museum features. But before you can do that, see if you can find:
*Will Parker’s crystal-laden railroad layout.
*Two cardstock cathedrals.
*Several dollhouses from Marie Rockwell’s collection.
*Miniatures made from toothpicks.
*Toy cars from famous movies and TV shows.
*Creations by Mickie Vollmer, who’s also operating the museum’s upcoming dollhouse and miniatures vendor show.
*A antique-Buick kiddie car, lent by Guy Bennett Jr.
*An original Studebaker sleigh – just waiting for Santa Claus!