A small still life where overlooked flea‑market trinkets become unexpectedly alive under close attention
In Glass Miniatures (1982) I was responding to a quiet shift in how I perceived these tiny figurines I’d found at a flea market. At first they were nothing more than passing curiosities — a bit silly, a bit decorative, the kind of objects that sit on a shelf and gradually disappear into the background. They felt like social distractions, easily forgotten and almost ridiculous in their fragility and sentimentality.
But after several months of living with them, something changed. Their initial charm gave way to a more focused attention, and I began to see them less as trinkets and more as characters with their own peculiar presence. That shift in perception is what prompted this small painting.
In this work, they remain at their original scale, still modest and unassuming. Yet the act of painting them — of studying their reflections, their tiny gestures, their glassy distortions — gave them a new kind of identity. They became subjects rather than souvenirs.
That attention eventually expanded into something larger. Before I was finished with their attraction, I had not only made this small painting but also a much larger work featuring the same figures, along with several others in what became my Glass Figurines series. In those later pieces, they took on new identities, transformed by scale, composition, and the psychological weight that comes from enlarging something originally meant to be overlooked.
This painting marks the moment when the figurines first crossed that threshold — when the trivial became visually and emotionally compelling.
Dimensions: 6″ × 8″
Medium: Oil on matboard
Framing: Custom-framed by me to complement my specific painting aesthetic.
A small still life where overlooked flea‑market trinkets become unexpectedly alive under close attention
In Glass Miniatures (1982) I was responding to a quiet shift in how I perceived these tiny figurines I’d found at a flea market. At first they were nothing more than passing curiosities — a bit silly, a bit decorative, the kind of objects that sit on a shelf and gradually disappear into the background. They felt like social distractions, easily forgotten and almost ridiculous in their fragility and sentimentality.
But after several months of living with them, something changed. Their initial charm gave way to a more focused attention, and I began to see them less as trinkets and more as characters with their own peculiar presence. That shift in perception is what prompted this small painting.
In this work, they remain at their original scale, still modest and unassuming. Yet the act of painting them — of studying their reflections, their tiny gestures, their glassy distortions — gave them a new kind of identity. They became subjects rather than souvenirs.
That attention eventually expanded into something larger. Before I was finished with their attraction, I had not only made this small painting but also a much larger work featuring the same figures, along with several others in what became my Glass Figurines series. In those later pieces, they took on new identities, transformed by scale, composition, and the psychological weight that comes from enlarging something originally meant to be overlooked.
This painting marks the moment when the figurines first crossed that threshold — when the trivial became visually and emotionally compelling.
Dimensions: 6″ × 8″
Medium: Oil on matboard
Framing: Custom-framed by me to complement my specific painting aesthetic.
Matted on museum quality matboard, mounted under glass in a real wood frame.
