MORE MINIATURES

This situation has gone off the rails, pun intended. (Because ... model train miniatures.)

Here is the journey of making my (tiny) submission to the Elephant Room's show, "No More Parades," January 16-30, 2026!

My submission is entitled: "More Parades!"

"More Parades" for the exhibit "No More Parades: Interrupted Joy," January 16-31, 2026 @ Elephant Room Gallery (704 S Wabash Avenue in Chicago). Opening Reception on Friday, January 16, 2026 from 6 to 9pm.

My friend told me about the Elephant Room's participation in Arts in the Dark, and I entered the following submission:

"I will make a sculpture of people carrying signs from various Chicago parades with portable battery-operated lighting."

Since that bit of things got cancelled / transformed into a gallery-only piece, I ditched the original Barbie doll plan and went with 1:87 scale figures (HO scale, like the massive model at the Museum of Science and Industry) because, and I cannot stress this enough, I have literally no chill.

My updated submission: "a collection of miniatures parading around Chicago!"

Because I am an unrecovering researcher at heart, I immediately went to check if this was an original idea and la, of course it is not.

Anyhow, I got to work looking up parades and going on the ole ebay / etsy / train world (truly, a rabbit hole / train tunnel? of discovery) to figure out how to get a billion tiny figurines.

If you are also new to this hobby, you might be interested to know that by "saving money" buying unpainted figures, you are "losing time" because they will arrive in a box... almost completely unassembled... (This would be great in theory if I were going to paint them, but since I am not, it means that in practice I am gluing arms and heads and guns on tiny figurines with what is probably way too much glue and not enough patience.)

Anyhow, now I am printing out tiny protest signs from various Chicago-based archives (also a camel, of course) and getting glue everywhere (on the couch, mainly) and have a grand old time trying to make the deadline!

Stay tuned (or don't, you do you).