Salley Mavor

It’s Miniature Monday and time to share some inspiration. Today, we’ll have a peek at the work of artist Salley Mavor.

I first learned about Salley when a friend shared the video of her work creating the illustrations for the children’s book My Bed. They’re not really illustrations – they’re fibre art sculptures which were photographed for the book.

Here’s that video, which also talks about her process.

On Salley’s website, you can check out a lot of her work, along with links to videos. My favorite tab is Polly Doll, who has been photographed in many places. Here she is in Ireland, in this pic from Salley’s website. (If you click on it, you’ll be taken to the Polly Doll tab.) Look at that fabulous little sweater!

Polly Doll in Ireland ©Salley Mavor

Salley also has a book, Felt Wee Folk, about creating your own miniature figures. You can probably guess that I’ve ordered a copy. 🙂 Here’s the info about it on her website.

Here’s Salley’s website, Wee Folk Studio, where you’ll find lots of other inspiration.

The Nutshell Studies

I’ve been discovering a lot of interesting miniatures. so will start sharing them on Miniature Mondays. These displays are creative and inspiring – and sometimes surprising.

The Nutshell Studies were created by Frances Glessner Lee in the 1940’s. They’re dioramas of crime scenes, intended to help train detectives to solve homicides. Lee (1878-1962) was America’s first female police captain and a pioneer in developing forensic sciences. She worked with the Department of Legal Sciences at Harvard and created these miniatures to teach police investigators what to look for at a crime scene.

The Red Room Nutshell Study by Frances Glessner Lee

Here’s an article about an exhibit of the 19 dioramas at the Smithsonian a few years ago. The image above is from that article and clicking on it will take you there, too.

This article at the Smithsonian magazine has a slide show of images and more information about Lee (who sounds like a very interesting woman.)

Here’s the Wiki.