Making the Same Artwork Full size and Miniature

Miniature Bread and Roses quilt by Elaine Luther, 2024

Working at Two Different Scales – Quilts

I made this quilt, above, for my mini solo show at A Far Northside Gallery, a micro gallery run by Jill Narhstedt in Chicago. That show was December 2024-January 2025. I’d already been planning a full size (not bed full size, but full size as in not miniature) when I made this one. The word bread in this one is a vintage transfer label for your kitchen.

Here are some images of the making process.  I was using scraps from my first attempt at making the full size version.

The Making of Mini Bread & Roses by Elaine Luther, 2024.

Here’s the full size version, which is 30″ ish.

Bread and Roses Quilt by Elaine Luther, 2025. Includes cyanotype print.

This one is made out of rose fabrics, a vintage table cloth, and a cyanotype print of a crocheted doily that says Bread. I got that doily in a mixed bag of old linens and was amazed when I got it home and opened the bag. I’d never seen one with a word before.

This was my second attempt to make this piece; the first attempt was too chaotic. This time around I tried to use rose fabrics from the same color families to make it more cohesive.  More blues, basically.

Both of these pieces refer to the song, “Bread and Roses,” an early 20th century women’s labor movement song, written in 1911. Some lyrics say, “Yes, it is bread we fight for, but we fight for roses too,” and “Hearts starve as well as bodies; give us bread, but give us roses.”

I’ve heard the song before and sung along to it, but as I was making these pieces and I looked up the lyrics, I was bummed to discover the super racist line.  I asked around, “Does this mean what I think it means?”  The consensus was that when it doubt, for that time period, the racist interpretation was most likely the correct one.

I often save cut-off scraps while working on a quilt and make miniatures as I go.  Quilts take a long time to make and finishing some miniature quilt tops along the way can be very satisfying.  I’ve shown my mini quilts in micro galleries, and also given some away as thank you gifts.

Here’s one more piece with a cyanotype of that bread doily. This one is 12″ x 24″, made for a specific show where all the pieces were the same size and were installed in the gallery like a Greek frieze.

The other photos are are from the 1913 suffragist march and the Silent Sentinels protests outside the White House.

Textile collage mounted on canvas, with digitally printed photos, fabric and cyanotype. Copyright Elaine Luther 2024

Working at Two Different Scales – Sculpture

“Shrine for a Sippy Cup” by Elaine Luther, 2017, 2021

These pieces are called Shrine for a Sippy Cup: Bittersweet and I’ve made it at three scales. Shown here are the largest and the smallest. The plant in the sippy cup in the full size version is artificial bittersweet.

Here’s what I wrote about it around the time that I made it:

It’s about the time when your youngest child gets older, leaves that little kid stage and you’re totally cool with it, but still want to mark that passage, and it’s still a little bittersweet, in a way.

The board book is from a friend, whose kids are younger than mine. The sides, roof and back of the house has quotes from other moms.

You can see close up photos in this blog post.

Here’s the mid-size version of this one:

Shrine for a Baby Food Jar, Copyright Elaine Luther 2017.

Both the baby food jar and the sippy cup were things that I got by asking for them online, they’re not actually from my house, for one thing, we were well beyond baby food at this point.  You can see the found quilt block in this one, I do love adding in a found quilt block.  This is the only piece I’ve made at three scales.

It can be difficult, sometimes, to switch scales.  When you’re trying to work larger and larger, because that seems to be what the art world wants, and/or you’re filling 42 linear feet of gallery walls (or more) for a show, it can then be difficult to get back into miniature mode.  I have solved this conflict by working less at miniature scale, but then when making work for my mini show at A Far Northside Gallery, I was able to get into working small and come up with a terrific, cohesive show.

Delivering a micro solo show to Far Northside Gallery in Chicago. Art by Elaine Luther, 2024.

New Work

I had the idea to make mini versions of some of my signature style pieces, and to at some point, have a (micro) solo show of that work.  That’s part of the motivation for making pieces like the miniature Bread and Roses quilt.

Sometimes I make the full size piece first and then make a mini version of it, as with the Shrine for a Sippy Cup, and other times I make the mini version first. It can be faster and more affordable to make the mini version. Here’s a mini version of a piece:

Pockets vs. Purses, Copyright Elaine Luther, 2025

And yes, the tiny purse really opens!

___________________

All artwork and photos are Copyright Elaine Luther, 2017-2025.