When it comes to art, Amanda Kelly is really small-minded.
The staid world of miniatures — think an old-fashioned doll house or model train set — is getting a gloriously rude awakening by the Bushwick-based artist, who counts tiny bongs, mini condoms and a teeny weed dispensary among her compact creations.
“The mini bongs I made out of a straw, a glass bead, and some weird clear fastener that I collected,” says Kelly, 27 who works out of a second bedroom-turned-studio in the apartment that she shares with her fiancé.
Ken Dolls eager to practice safe sex be warned: “[the condoms] were paper that I put packing tape on to make them look shiny.”
Kelly, who hopes to replace her homemade dainty dildo cast from resin with a 3-D printed one, says her pride and joy is the ink set-up she created for a tiny tattoo shop.
“That whole tray with the little Vaseline and the bottle cleaner and the little tiny pots of paint — that was my favorite part.”
As for the bud strains in her dwarfed head shop, “I used miniature landscaping material, so I had a bunch of shades of green and put it in little baggies,” says Kelly, who showed the (“cash-only!”) cutaway alongside a petite replica of her own bed — featuring Tampax, thongs, and a bottle of Baileys — in the “BadAss Miniatures” group show in Yonkers this past May.
“Like any artist you take from what you know” says Kelly. “I take a lot of inspiration from my own life, my fiancé; she used to work in a punk store…she also works at Doc Marten so I’m planning a Doc Marten-inspired piece.”
Her NSFW dioramas have landed her gigs on Amy Sedaris’ truTV show (look out for the tiny hats on fruits in Season 2), and window displays for Swarovski.
Whatever her next project it, Kelly is sure to push the elfin envelope: “Miniaturists are trying to create an illusion of reality. How far you go with it, the level of work you put into it, shows how much of a miniaturist you are.”
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