The Little World

One of the charms for me when I attend the doll-house ladies’ exhibition, or that of the model railway enthusiasts – is the novelty of the models and exhibits.

I preserve this freshness by attending only one of these per year – one year it will be the doll-houses and next the trains. Every time I go there will be older exhibits brought out again for display, but there will also be a good chance that in two years, fresh layouts or miniature interiors will have been completed and I can have the wonder all over again.

It is a little tougher with the scale model exhibition – if it runs once a year. There are always new contest models to see, and hopefully new products to buy from the shops, but sometimes the club displays are made up of items that have visited year-by-year. I do look carefully at the models and when they are just the same, I notice it.

Of course we are all whores for change in everything we do – from video presentation to reading to our hobby materials and tools. It is an important characteristic for exploitation by factories and sellers – as well I know from the photographic trade. Neuheit vor allem.

I forgive those who bring their old models – for they may not have had time to make new ones. But I am determined that each year I’ll present new material. It may have the flavour of past years in the general subjects I choose, but the show will be new nevertheless. So far I have kept to this.

Last year saw a Canadian airfield of the 1940’s in 1:72 scale. This year saw 6 small portions of airfields set in other parts of the world – the Pacific, China, Siberia, and Ukraine. It was a little poignant to show models with red stars in the current political climate but the fact of the matter was the models themselves were made in Ukraine, Poland, and the Czech Republic.* Assembled and painted with Japanese materials and tools. The fingers that did it were mine, at least…

The beauty of this form of tray is the fact that it can be taken to the display hall easily in my little Suzuki hatchback. I made a frame to transport the trays out of a shoe rack that was stored in the shed, and it worked brilliantly. Nothing got busted, lost, or cost nothing.

The trays are currently sized to fit a display cabinet that’s lodged in Floreat Public Library and they are changed regularly every couple of months. With a little alteration to the tray contents, each airfield can slot directly into the shelf of an IKEA Billy bookcase. So once they have done duty in the Library and been exhibited at the big annual local show, they can go into the bookcase as a permanent display for the collection. The trays will hold 4-6 aircraft.

I have also designed the holders so that some of them butt onto each other, making double-size fields to accommodate larger aircraft. I plan to go a bit more modern this coming year and will make suitable runways and hard-stands for the trays. This sort of modelling benefits greatly from the model rail and doll-house hobbies as they have a lot more experience with papers, metal sheets, and landscaping materials.

* I did hear two Polish gentlemen grumbling to themselves when they spotted a Polish plane in Soviet markings but that soon passed.