Fire-fighters' Drop; and Amazing Miniaturist Artists! Frances Glessner Lee & Tom Hickman

Safety First, Penny Cooper said. There was no way to get from one floor of Playground House to another, so they cut a fire-fighters' drop.
Chuck had to lie on her back to push the drill power button:

It works! The hole was made by drilling the outline of a circle through the plywood, so the edge is jagged, but it's no problem for hard-plastic bodies.

 
At work on Friday, Jester had handed me the little live-edge wood table (below, on first floor): "Something for your dollhouse."
Perfect for the 1970s vibe...

__________________

Dollhouses are on my radar now. 

II. From bink:
"The Grim Crime-Scene Dollhouses Made by the ‘Mother of Forensics’ Frances Glessner Lee (1878−1962): 
They’re perfectly to scale, and all based on real cases", 
atlasobscura.com/articles/frances-glessner-lee-crime-scence-forensics-investigation-dioramas



ABOVE: Kitchen, c. 1944: 
"This is one of Frances Glessner Lee's Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death, a series of 1/12-scale dioramas based on real-life criminal investigation cases. 
They were used—and continue to be studied today—to train investigators in the art of evidence gathering, meticulous documentation, and keen observation."

Another crime-scene by Frances Glessner Lee, "Red Bedroom"

__________________

III. And, from GZ:
Tom Hickman’s Dolls House and Miniature Exhibition, 
with a Mystery Hotel:
 "An Lanntair (Arts Centre in Stornoway, in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland) invited 40 artists, makers, dreamers, school pupils and other curious minds to design a 1:12 scale hotel room", 
welovestornoway.com/index.php/articles/40787-stories-and-pictures-from-an-exhibition

BELOW: The Mystery Hotel in the gallery.
I LOVE THIS. I wonder how I could organize such an event--everyone making a room. A great community project... 

Tom Hickman does far more than dollhouses--he stitches with local wools and remnants of Harris Tweed--and more mixed media art.

BELOW: A couple favorites of mine from exhibits of Hickman's art hosted by Robert Young Antiques:
 robertyoungantiques.com/collections/tom-hickman:
Left: "Remnant-Tweed Covered Kitchen Chair" 
Right: "3D Lamb in Mahogany Box"

"Hickman lives alone in a croft on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, he has no mobile phone, ipad, television or wifi.  
He recently wrote: 
“Naïve, primitive, amateur, provincial, self-taught, non-accademic: stylistically there is no one term that satisfactorily describes my stitching of sheep on tweed remnants. 
Some would say they are not even art, being well outside the realms of taste established by the elite culture, however I prefer to regard them as a truly vernacular response to my Hebridean island surroundings”.

 >  More here, from Tom Hickman's blog, Hebridean Dreaming:
"Doll's Houses and the Art of the Miniaturist," Dec. 5 2025, 
hebridean-dreaming.blogspot.com/2025/12/dolls-houses-and-art-of-miniaturist.html

Happy Winter Solstice all!