Episode 33: Just a Little Left Field: Ingvild Eiring's Whimsical, Wonderful Box Dioramas

Our miniatures hobby world can sometimes seem a bit insular, excluding the work of other creators whose talents and sensibilities are very much aligned with our own, even if they don’t strictly fall into the categories of historical, fantasy, and ordnance that we regularly feature at our shows. Your hosts have been big fans of Ingvild Eiring’s box dioramas since she first made us aware of them by emailing this Web site and asking if we thought it would make sense to add a gallery for her. Heck yes!, we said, and what’s more, we thought we could learn a lot by chatting with this extraordinary artist, since she straddles the worlds of our pursuit, the dollhouse hobby, and fine art. (She has had several gallery exhibitions, and her work is much sought-after by collectors.)

Raised in Bodø, Norway, and currently based in Oslo, Ingvild studied fashion design and has worked with costumes and styling in film and advertising since the mid-nineties, as well as doing some modeling for artistic photographers in Europe and the U.S. She has been building her box dioramas since 2011, working in 1/12th scale, and sculpting and scratchbuilding everything in her elaborate, evocative scenes, which often have a macabre tone and dark sense of humor that we love.

As noted above, you can see more of Ingvild’s work in her gallery on this site as well as on her own web site. As usual, after the chat, Barry and Jim discuss some of their favorites of Ingvild’s boxes, and then talk about various and sundry other issues, including attempting to answer a question about judging from Australian listener and modeler Jamie Stokes, and Barry offering Jim some advice on soldering and stripping fine wires (he’s at the lighting stage of his own latest box). Thanks as always for listening!