Back to the Bunkie

Nowadays, the Bunkie Studio is alight, with fireplace going and music playing. I'm spending my days there building a miniature theater and a few other things. Facing the huge picture window in front of my desk I sometimes watch eagles or ravens flying by, going back and forth from the forest at the end of the street. It's all very cozy and comfortable and I spend hours in there most days, playing.

The miniature theater project has been with me in my dreams and imagination for something like 5 years now. It's a Venetian inspired stage scene with an highly decorative exterior facade, a scenery backdrop representing the Rialto Bridge in Venice and six actors in Carnevale costume, taking their final bows. It measures 24 inches wide, 14 inches deep and 21 inches at its highest point. The actors are 5 1/2 to 6 inches high.

The scenery backdrop was the first thing I had made. I commissioned a Thai artist in the Chiang Mai night market building to paint the 19" canvas from a small picture I gave him. Dusit did a fantastic job. When I was in Manila I started sketching and constructed the theater out of foam board to figure out the dimensions. Then last winter, here, with the studio set up to spend my days in, still unable to work out how I was going to build it, I worked instead on the actors and finished costuming them. Six weeks work, and I loved every single minute of it. Freaky cute.

Some weeks ago, when the Saturday market was still outside, I was strolling along the vendor tables when I stopped in front of a woodworker, displaying wooden toys, puzzles and other small things. Nothing of interest to me except for a small sign I noticed at the back of the booth, "We do custom orders". So I stopped for a chat. Turned out that the guy was a retired high school woodworking teacher who had a fully equipped shop and, guess what, would be very interested in building my theater. Now this was major as I had been completely stalled. By this past fall, I was still pretty stymied about the construction of the basic structure. I needed saws which I didn't have to cut up the 3/8 inch Baltic Birch plywood. And even if I got the equipment, I had no idea how to use it, and how to construct what is, essentially a three piece interlocking box cabinet.

Well Bill the WoodWorker did know. He took my design and measurements, got going and in no time the cabinet that would become my fantasy theater was finished and delivered. I went out there with my camera and photographed him in his shop as he put the last little finishing touches on the theater. I was drooling over his workspace and all his equipment and tools lined up and organized so brilliantly. He says that the organization comes to him after long years of experience including teaching woodworking to prison inmates. There it seems, they need to be uber-organized - every single nail needs to be counted out and accounted for, for pretty obvious reasons.

Here's the theater back home, ready to be started. To create this sneak preview I propped up Dusit's scenery backdrop, placed the actors that I costumed last winter and for good measure balanced a couple of cardboard rolls on children's blocks - this is a Venetian play after all, and marble columns are in order, no? Everyone was very happy. The Freaky Cutes have spent the summer on the fireplace mantle, yelling at me from time to time. "Where's the theater?" "I'm sick of standing here in this costume" "Get on with it".

The two pottery masks on the wall (from a local artist) are masks for giants, at 14" wide and 16" tall.

Now that the cabinet is done, after the ridiculously long creative incubation period, it's full speed ahead. I've been building the marble columns for both sides of the stage and have completed the hardwood floor board installation on a sub-floor that will slide inside. All the exterior and interior facades and trims are created on some kind of base designed to fit into or onto the cabinet. It's easier to work on of course, flat, outside the structure, but the bigger reason for not working directly on the cabinet is I have no idea what I'm doing so I'm making it up as I go along. Best not to be experimenting right on the finished product as often I'm trying different finishes, or colors, or techniques or whatever before finding the "that's it" solution. I'm also figuring out what I need to electrify the thing to run stage lights both from the floor upward and along tracks above, highlighting the actors and scenery. I'm carving the Tragedie e Comedie masks for the top center of the triangular pediment above the entire stage.

I've designed the front facade, checking out lumber stores to see what the smallest molding they have looks like, and figuring out how to make my own. In a way, I'm finding I have some latitude with equipment and supplies as this project is not to usual miniature scale. It's a theater stage. If I did it in 1:12 it would take up the entire Bunkie and out the door.  But it's still pretty small and I still have to find trims and finishes somewhere, or figure out how to make or convert things - with tools not much better than my Olaf 25mm utility knife. Wish me luck. Or better yet, wish me inspiration.

I've been thinking about this project for a very long time, even while "finishing" the last miniatures project back in Manila, the Asian Treasure Shop. The design is probably inspired by 19th century European toy theaters (think gaudy), but that's as far as that goes. This is a picture of a cardboard and paper painted theater from England, 1850, now in the Pollock Museum. We used to have one of these that we played with as kids at the cottage in Grandma's house. I remember well the different cardboard backdrops that slid into brackets, and the painted cardboard actors on sticks that you poked through the sides to move them around the stage. It had a cloth screen that you could turn a crank at the side to raise and lower it. It came with scenery and actors for several fairy tales including Little Red Riding Hood, wolf and all. It was very old even way back then, and it may even have belonged to my grandmother as a child. My cousin and I were talking about it awhile ago, wondering what happened to it. Wish I knew. I do know that for several years when I used to spend summers there as an adult, I looked everywhere for it to no avail. Gone. Someone must have pitched it. Another problem with communal property.

This is where the inspiration no doubt comes from, but today's theater is a different beast made of different materials. I know exactly what it looks like finished in this imagination of mine, the trick now is making it happen.  This is all about figuring out how to do things I don't know how to do, while listening to great music in my playground and staying warm. Heaven.