Tiffany Monk’s Miniatures

Local artist Tiffany Monk (who did the cover in the spring of 2023) was the only female finalist on CBC’s season 3 of “Best in Miniature”. The eight-episode televised competition involved building a dollhouse from scratch, complete with handmade miniatures in each room. On March 29^th & 30^th, Tiffany will be at the Miniature Enthusiasts of Montreal—Miniature Exhibition and Sale. Then in May, she will be a part of the very prestigious Kensington Dollshouse Festival in England. 

Although she was never drawn to actually playing with doll houses, Tiffany loves designing everything it takes to fill a doll house. This was evident looking at her miniatures recipe/engineering notebook, which is filled with beautiful sketches, instructions, and templates taped onto the pages. The notes on the miniature furniture are very detailed, complete with resin ratios, colour stains and types of wood.

Knowing absolutely nothing about miniatures, Tiffany guided me through her home studio, explaining that most doll house miniatures are built at a 1:12 scale. So, a six-foot person would be 6 inches tall. Barbie is at a 1:6 scale, so roughly double in size. She has figures at both scales on hand for reference. Having looked at her website prior to our interview, I asked Tiffany about the hamburger and sweet potato fries I saw. She pulls them out and right away lets me know that they are not to scale, but bigger. She points to the figures, and indeed the hamburger was half the size of Barbie’s head. There was no way Barbie’s little lips were going to get around that burger.

Seeing how interested I was in food miniatures, Tiffany showed me some other items one of them being a minuscule egg in an eggcup at the 1:12 scale. So small, it was difficult to pick up the egg and put it into its cup. This is where her miniature skills really start blowing my mind. I asked how on earth she made the eggcup because it looked as if it was a minuscule piece of pottery. Did she take what must have been a speck of clay and actually turn it on a potter’s wheel? Yep, right there on the shelf was a small plug-in potter’s wheel!

We continued the interview in her living room. On the coffee table sat a miniature guitar with its strings magically glistening in the sunlight. In the background was Tiffany’s actual guitar which she had reproduced as a miniature. Tiffany posted the making of her miniature guitar on Instagram and much to her surprise, it has over 3.4 million views! After watching it, it was no surprise to me, her intricate work is awesome.

Tiffany’s miniatures offer a completely different artistic, imaginative, tactile experience that is just so fun and makes one… Happy! Afterwards, I found myself walking around my house looking at the different items thinking… I wonder how Tiffany would make that?

For more about Tiffany Monk’s incredible creations and talents, go to www.tiffanymonk.com or her Instagram TiffWhatIf.

Andrea Conway