An artist makes a house and fills it with herself. She chooses walnut and warm pine floors, a cherry-wood peak. Six shutters stand open, pulled back, the house’s insides exposed. No stairs, doors. No obvious means of connection can be seen: just simultaneous parallels.

It’s five past nine in the kitchen. The cat licks a small bowl set on linoleum. A blue willow plate lives above the stove midst wallpaper roses and thorns. The shelves are not bare; and there is fruit on top of the fridge. By the window over the sink, soldiers stand in rows — and wait.

In the living room, eight lights dance behind two lace drapes with four medallions each. Roses on the walls again, but paler this time. A plant, a basket, an African mask. Who knows what else hides within these walls? Nothing through sliding-glass doors: only darkness shows.

Above, a fine-feathered prima donna leans against pearl-studded, white-satin walls. Peach silk brocade covers her bed. Jewels abound — but she is bald. A coiffed-blonde younger-self peers out of a glittering gold frame. No window in this room. Soft lambs-wool lies underfoot.

Next door, lush-red patterns, redolent of velvet luxury and oriental ease. Rugs, pillows, curtains, a bed – three still birds: lost pheasants, lonely peacocks, or robins building a nest. Here, unusual fullness and heaviness beckon, beseech us to be moved – or simply to move on.

Above, a studio space: slanted skylight, clear view of a church spire. Geometric painting on an easel reproduces patterns of window-lights. A naked, stuffed mannequin stands on a dais in his boots. A cork-tower rises beside him. Behind him a kiln-glazed earthenware pitcher.

In the uppermost, left-hand-corner room of the dollhouse, strange combinations create consternation and wonder. A full-sized brown bear stands on hind legs outside the third-floor window. Yellow elephants lumber across old walls. There are books, a rug, and an electric lamp.

A rocking-horse shares the shelf with an over-sized snow-globe. In front of the bear-window, a ruffled-blue bassinet sits empty. On the floor, a large marble egg breaks open: a baby lies inside the hollow well of one half; a black spider sits atop the milky-white dome of the other.

Thus, solid rectangular base: three floors, four windows, no doors. Cat, woman, spider, child, birds, bear, man. Kitchen, parlor, boudoir, kasbah, nursery. Mini-imaginations and golden grains of wood. Tiny shutters protect each window. Select textures keep mysteries alive.

. . . . .

Ekphrastic by Susan Powers Bourne
Source: Miriam Schapiro’s Dollhouse