Well, I finally got the last of the miniature furniture and associated accessories, OUT of the garage, and into the work room. It is a wonderful feeling to know that all my tiny stuff is surrounding me and yet I am sad too that there is NO SPACE inside to accommodate all the Magazines on Miniatures that I have been collecting for the past 30+ years! They are still mouldering away in the garage. Whaaaa! I love my mini mags and although I am hooked on this piece of electronic equipment, I still want my Paper! Those magazines (mostly Nutshell News and the Miniature Collector), represent a great deal of my early experiences with minis and so there is the nostalgic connection that endears them to me. The mini
shakers and movers and the ones that paved the way for those that have followed are printed on the pages of those countless magazines that I periodically go though and still enjoy. Names that probably mean little to many now, were Catherine B. Mclaren, Sybli Harp, Geraldine Willems, Dee Snyder, Bonnie Bennett, Noel and Pat Thomas, Dougless Strickland Bitler , Deb Stenholm, Anne Ceasar, Joann Swanson (she has a great blog; DIY Miniatures), Anne Day Smith, Brooke Tucker, Karen Markland, Eugene Kupjack, Judee Williamson and Nicolle Warton Marbel, Susan Sirkis,.... editors, contributors, reserchers, mini food makers, scrap crafters, doll dressers and doll house makers, furniture upholsters, painters, stylists, etc. etc., the list goes on and on.... I Adored them all!!! Every month, I would be in the miniature store picking up my copies and then wait until I was alone and then quickly scan them and then re-trace my way through them with a highlighting pen, flagging pages and making notes as to what I liked and wanted to try. There were dreams in those magazines and what we do today is based on what they did yesterday. So, now as I go through my boxes of collected pieces that originated from those times and remind me of my early beginnings in this craft, I am grateful for the "education" from so many of these early pioneers and the enduring power of the printed word. They and many others, elevated the hobby to an art form. They took it from kids play, to adult appreciation, from chunky, to refined and they informed and reminded me that 'only through sharing can we truly enjoy this hobby'.
elizabeth
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Gosh, Elizabeth, so very well said! A tribute to those pioneers!
ReplyDeleteDitto!
DeleteCan't say anymore than that! Except maybe to ask if you have the first "Nutshell". Worth a lot of $$$$ hang on to it. Don't do what I did and gave it away in my connections.
fats
Hello Lucille and Fats! Thanks for your comments!! I miss those early days of discovery but I love what's being done now. I think my oldest copy of Nutshell News is from 1976 and I don't think it is worth anything to anybody but me. It is all in black and white with very few photos and was published quarterly,( if I recall rightly). Compare that to what we have now and think of how far we have come. It staggers my mind!
Deleteelizabeth
Hello Elizabeth,
ReplyDeleteIt is so important to know about the people who made our hobby what it is. It is so much fun to got hrough old mini amgazines. I hate that we can't get most of them here in Montreal. So much information...oh well...thank goodness for mini blogs.
Big hug my friend,
Giac
what a great post!!!
ReplyDeleteThank you Giac and Kim, Yes, " thank goodness for mini blogs"! Times have changed, and it took me a VERY long time to attach myself to technology and I am happy that I'm now in the loop; but I shall never get over my pleasure in paper. I am associating these magazines with the birth of the hobby in its "toddlerhood" and later it's" teenage years" and the people that guided us through to the independence and maturity that we now so enjoy.(sigh) .......................................... OKAY, I'm back!
ReplyDeletebig hugs back to both of you! and thank you both for your comments, they are MUCH appreciated.
elizabeth
Beautifully written. I love my mini magazines and even though I never had a subscription (and still don't), whenever I was at the mini store I would pick up a small stack. They always had milk crates with old issues. I would happily sit in the floor flipping through them and picking out the ones I felt I would use the most. Of course, I should have known I would use them all. Sadly I lost a small stack to water damage, but I still have about 50 magazines that I find myself continually going back to and looking at. I love a good bit of reading on paper. :-)
ReplyDeleteDale
DALE!!!!! YES!!! And isn't amazing how much of what was then CAN be transformed to the here and now? Good ideas are timeless and one as you know, one interpretation can lead to another and yet another and so on and so on.....
DeleteSo glad to meet another' papearholic' with an insatiable thirst for minis!
elizabeth