“I’ve always had this obsession with small worlds,” says Susan Canaday Henry, reaching into one of her miniature environments to right a piece of furniture that had toppled over. “I think everybody does, because they’re just so fascinating.”
Her pieces are certainly that. Stepping gingerly around her studio, she shows off a faithful, petite dollhouse replica of Dita Von Teese’s Hollywood home; an imagined version of Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop-fueled residence, complete with a “cheat room” containing a tiny box of Twinkies and a shrunken bong; and a couple of brightly colored, almost candylike houses “inspired by Xanadu and The Wiz.” Nearby is a worktable covered with LED lighting sets, tiny plates of “food” sculpted from clay and sticks of purchased furniture she’s modifying to her tastes.
That lifelong interest in miniatures first reached full blossom during the pandemic shutdown.
“What started off as just an escape turned into full-on cathartic expression. I needed to get these worlds out. I think it was coming from such places of frustration like not being able to leave the house, wanting to be able to travel, all those things. But I could travel through [making] the houses and because of that … I didn’t really worry about a budget. I was ordering things off eBay, just like everyone else,” she says, gesturing to a dollhouse houses whose front porch is piled high with tiny FedEx boxes.
“This is very buried in me, and super important,” she says. “This is going to be my grandma career.”
Canaday Henry’s art soon attracted attention. She’s become a regular presence at miniature trade shows; one such show, the International Market of Miniature Artisans (imomalv.com), is happening this weekend, February 24-25, at Palace Station. And if you’re industrious enough to figure out how to stream the CBC out of Ottawa, you can see her in the third season of that network’s reality competition series Best in Miniature.
And even as she’s garnering notice for her small ambitions, she’s teaching herself how to get better at realizing them. A graphic artist by schooling, she’s adding new skill sets to her repertoire as quickly as she requires them—electrical wiring, woodworking, sewing and more.
“You’re kind of a jack-of-all-trades in a lot of things,” she says. “Everything I do has been about trying to perfect the miniature experience, and that means I’m getting even more neurotic about some things. Hair and dust? Forget it.”
But she doesn’t mind at all if the viewer gets into her small worlds.
“I usually don’t put dolls in my houses, because I want people to imagine themselves in this space,” she says.
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