Honey, I shrunk the country

Some people go big when they decide to celebrate events like Canada’s 150th anniversary. True to form, the artists of the Miniature Enthusiasts of Edmonton club went as big as they possibly could, and it’s still really, really small.

“We have miniaturized 150 pictures of people, places and things that are iconically Canadian,” said St. Albert's Joanne Root, the club president. “It’s really awesome. It really is. It’s a fantastic display... really phenomenal.”

They call it Canada in Miniature. When you work with tweezers, there isn’t much room for subtlety.

All of the little pictures are framed just as if they were regular-sized paintings hung on a museum’s majestic art wall. Here, the art wall is a standard poster board. Essentially, you could consider the dimensions of a child’s science fair project display and you get the idea. Just don’t get the idea that this is an amateurish hobby. There’s a lot of intricate and exquisite artwork encapsulated in just a scant few square feet of space.

“The object, of course, is to celebrate Canada’s 150th birthday but initially it was to showcase at our annual show and sale in September. We thought it would be nice to do something that wouldn’t take up a whole lot of room.”

Practically speaking, small things do make a lot of sense.

These miniaturists typically work in a 1:1 scale, meaning one foot of the model object gets miniaturized by the artist down to one inch. It’s handy to use, especially if you produce a lot of this work.

“We do work in different scales. The most common scale is one inch represents one foot. Many people have downsized because of the fact that they’re running out of room in their own homes. We’ve got a lot of people working one-quarter inch scale, which is one-quarter inch represents one foot, which is very tiny. And even smaller scales than that.”

For Canada in Miniature, the contributors were given some basic guidelines around the 1:1 scale: “a picture that you would be able to hang in your dollhouse room or your roombox room and it wouldn’t look out of place,” she explained.

A roombox, by the way, is a display box that is used for three-dimensional miniature scale environments, or scale models.

“We’ve got the Canadian flag. We’ve got all the emblems of the provinces. We’ve got Wayne Gretzky, Celine Dion, Gordon Lightfoot, the Canadarm, green onion cakes… because they were invented in Edmonton. We’ve got Nanaimo bars, which is another Canadian invention. We’ve got Canadian mittens, poutine, the Rideau Canal… you name it. It’s whatever people felt really signified something ‘Canadian’ to them.”

There are images of other Canadian celebrities including Ernie Coombs (AKA Mr. Dressup), Anne Murray, Stompin’ Tom Connors, Leslie Nielsen, and Lorne Greene. There’s James Naismith, the inventor of basketball. There are miniature image of lacrosse sticks, animals like the grey jay (the national bird), a little view of Parliament Hill, a tray of Canadian butter tarts, the Canadian Tire logo, a mini box of Smarties, an AMA card, a painting of an aboriginal chief in full headdress, a view of the Vimy Ridge Memorial in France, a pic of former astronaut Col. Chris Hadfield strumming his guitar in space, and yes, there’s that teeny tiny version of the Sports Illustrated collectors’ magazine edition with Wayne Gretzky on the cover.

For a full list, check the sidebar.

“Some of them are a little bit out of scale, say, for putting them in a dollhouse. Some of them are actual pieces of art that people have had and a little bit larger. When I say ‘a little bit larger’ that’s probably three inches by two inches. There’s one particular picture that’s of a beautiful place in Montreal.”

The highly detailed art project was done just for the club and for their love of country. It’s on private display at the moment but people can check it out for themselves – ideally with magnifying glasses – during the club’s annual show and sale, set to take place from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sun., Sept. 17 at the Executive Royal Inn, 10010 178 St. in Edmonton. Admission is $5 for adults, $2 for attendees aged 7 to 15, and free for 6 and under.

There, they will be selling dollhouses, roomboxes and vignettes, including miniature furnishings, dolls, accessories, flowers, mini food objects, handcrafted items, tools and other things. People can visit “Miniature Enthusiasts of Edmonton/ M.E.E” on Facebook to find out more.

After the fall event, the individual pictures will likely be separated and returned to each artist.