Anyone familiar with Anna Weyant’s work knows that dollhouses have long occupied a central place in her visual language. Over the past year, the artist, a dear friend of mine, has become immersed in the actual craft of miniature-making. I’ve received countless texts and late-night calls from her documenting the intricate evolution of her dollhouse project.
I was just as hooked hearing about the progress of her dollhouse as I was hearing the progress of my own home renovations. Partly because there’s something wonderfully indulgent about caring this deeply about a tiny house, but also because the obsessive attention, precision, and emotional investment behind it all feel quintessentially Anna.
Your dollhouses have been something you’ve been talking about with me for a while. How did this project come to be?
It’s the first hobby I’ve ever really developed. I’ve always loved dolls. I’ve always loved The Sims, which is like digital dolls. From there, I started making miniature models so that I could control the light on a model to paint from. I would build a sort of room box so I could light the house in a specific way. And I’ve painted exteriors of dollhouses before; I see them more as landscape paintings. Then maybe a year ago, Jason [Isbell], my boyfriend, got me an antique dollhouse for Christmas, and I started tinkering with that. A lot of it arrived broken, so I started to repair it. From there, it just turned into this all-consuming hobby. Now I build my own.
Do you think the dollhouse project is a reflection on the way you approach making art or making in general?
I like to say the process of painting is just solving one problem after another. I approach dollhouses the same way. I’m looking at a room and I’m saying, Okay, where do I start? Where do I finish this? I just wallpapered a room and then I took down the wallpaper and I’m re-wallpapering it because it wasn’t quite the right wallpaper. There’s a lot of editing similar to how I would paint a painting.
You’re literally just building a home on a small scale with little tiny tools. Is that meditative for you or frustrating at times, too?
I’m like a miniature contractor. I build my own tiles and I just broke a tile and now the project’s set back. It’s frustrating, but it’s low stakes so it is meditative. I do it for me—I guess I’m the client. Sometimes I’ll make a painting and I’ll keep it, but this is the first project that I’ve made for me. And it’s also inspired by [Robert] Gober’s house that had the fire [Burnt House, 1979-1980] or Laurie Simmons. The fine art aspect creeps into it, but this is kind of just play for me. I don’t actually have dolls in the house…
Is the idea that your dolls live outside, or is it that this is your home, and it doesn’t even need a doll because this is representative of you as a builder?
I’ve never pieced that together—that the paintings are the dolls and the houses are the empty rooms. I actually do have one doll that came with the box that Jason got me. I’m scared she’ll curse me if I toss her, so I won’t throw her out. She just lives in a box in the basement.
The cover of your boyfriend’s recent album, Foxes in the Snow, was a dollhouse. I feel like this was all inching toward the real thing coming to life. What I love is it’s so indulgent in such a juicy way where it’s like someone could say, “That’s so ridiculous,” but it’s totally fun. It highlights how little people play in life.
Even just the term dollhouse—and this is why I stress that there aren’t dolls in the house—is almost belittling, like, “Oh, she makes dollhouses.” There’s such a history of female craft and artisanship, and actually a very diverse community of miniaturists, but I think historically it’s been “for the girl” and not serious art. That’s partly why I have always loved Robert Gober’s dollhouses.
I don’t know if you saw the movie, but in the new Wuthering Heights, there’s a big dollhouse. It made me think of the metaphors of a dollhouse: being trapped, being a kept woman. You’re in Nashville, in a home, creating a mini home.
I haven’t seen it, but I’m sure it’s about control. It’s a space that the girl can control.
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