The Constituents

This Is a series of "portraits" of pre-war lead figures, tiny toys which I have been collecting for years. The actual figures are between 1" and 3" tall. The paintings vary in size from 12"to 36". I am attracted to them as subjects because of their beauty, the care with which they were made and because I admire how expressive they are despite their tiny size. They remind me of The Borrowers, a book I read to my children, about a family of tiny people who lived hidden in the house of normal-sized people. They only came out at night, to borrow whatever they needed, and took great care never to be seen by the big people. Each lead figure and animal shows the wear and tear of the play of long-ago children, which I love. By painting them in a realist portraiture tradition I want them to be seen as representative of aspects of ourselves.