Hi hi,

FEM FRI ANNOUNCEMENT: I'm delighted to be able to tell you that Fem Fri will have a guest editor for the next two weeks, and doubly delighted to tell you that this guest editor is Kerry Lambeth. You guys are going to have so much fun together, here's some top line info on Kerry:

1. She has just completed a Masters degree in early modern English and her thesis is making waves already
2. I once met Kerry by chance at a Magic Mike double bill at the Prince Charles cinema, if you too want to meet Kerry by chance a Magic Mike double bill might be the one
3. Very funny

Okay, now let's do a Fem Fri for today! It's about doll's houses. I love doll's houses because they are and have been a way for women to show their everyday lives and the love and care that goes into those lives. And at a tiny scale, which is extremely cute. They give us a look at the typically neglected everyday throughout history, and I'd like to start with a doll's house that shows the everyday in a favoured architectural era, that of modernism:

This is Whiteladies House, created by Mrs Moray to "model the benefits of the modern architecture and interior design being enjoyed by a social elite of bright young things". Here's a nice detailed article on the house and the paintings in it:

When it was first displayed to the public in 1936, Whiteladies House was accompanied by a small pamphlet detailing its historically-educative purpose and its features. Thomas wrote that it was intended:

to record in miniature the habits, homes, tastes and ideas of the people of today – the young people who are unhampered by choice possessions of old furniture or by old conventions of drawing rooms, calling hours, formal manners or privacy.

With uncanny prescience, she described these youths as ‘A generation bred in one war and living its little time of sunshine to the full before the next.’

https://www.homesubjects.org/2015/05/21/the-whiteladies-house-interwar/

Of course, we all know how charming the past is, so who is making the present tiny and cute? The answer is Marina Sokalskaya of the Etsy store EvenTiner. I love her focus on the present day here, look at this coffee machine:

KitchenAid mixer:

And IKEA dresser, to my chagrin this one sold before I could download a proper photo:

https://www.etsy.com/shop/EvenTinier?page=1#items

Finally, a project I'd not heard of before – the Childhood Cube by artist Sarah Raphael. She got children to furnish 216 little rooms to reflect their daily lives (it was for display in the Millenium Dome). This is an article about restoring the Cube, which had fallen into disrepair:

The variety of the themes and compositions is astonishing. We were constantly surprised by these quirky and funny scenes, finding something new every day. […] This wide range of modern materials such as Plasticine, Perspex and plastics can be challenging to be conserved. We carried out preliminary research on the type of materials present and also tested adhesives and cleaning methods to make sure we would not cause any damage during conservation and to guarantee their future preservation.

https://collectingchildhood.wordpress.com/2015/12/02/the-childhood-cube-creation-and-conservation/#more-210

Happy Friday!

Alex xx.