Featured Artist: Jeremy Smith of Catmando Miniatures

We catch up with Jeremy from his new home in France.

What is special and different about Jeremy Smith’s work and what sets it apart from any other furniture makers/miniaturists is the pieces he chooses to create, which are usually functional pieces with working parts.

This is something I have been thinking about a lot lately.  How can we describe the difference between a model house and a miniature house or dolls house?  It is pretty straightforward actually, a model house is a representation of a building, something that looks the same in a smaller size, but a miniature house or dolls house is so much more.  The furnishings inside must not just represent something they must actually be that thing only smaller of course!  Jeremy agrees:

For me it has to be the real thing exactly, just twelve times smaller, so accuracy is vital. It has to look correct and function correctly. Quality is important.

It is not surprising that Jeremy has this point of view. At the age of sixteen he was encouraged by a careers officer towards a full-time college course in industrial model making, which led to work creating scale models of copper mines in Zambia, and some architectural projects including replicas of buildings in Trafalgar Square in London. He was also remembers making a remote-controlled aeroplane as a child and before that Airfix models, which were popular among young boys at the time.

He discovered dolls houses in the 1980s, when his dad, who was a craftsman himself, told him about a dolls’ house fair at Carlyon Bay in Cornwall. He attended the show and never looked back.

His curiosity of how things work, his eye for accuracy and patience all help him create his intricate miniatures. He finds working with his customers on commissions and new pieces helps spark his imagination:

I really appreciate this kind of work as it stimulates new ideas…Finishing a piece and finding that it works, or folds up, or moves. Getting customer feedback and feeling that the customer appreciates their piece and is as fascinated by the result as I am is very inspiring.

Jeremy is now semi retired & living in France.  He has spent the last few years working on their new full size house & garden but that work is now almost complete, so he can spend more time in his workshop. Jeremy sees his work as a serious occupation, but a part-time one which he genuinely does for the pleasure of it.  

He has lots of new projects in mind that will be inspired by the traditional French architecture and furniture styles from around the area he lives. After a lifetime of making little things out of wood, it’s a habit he has no intention of breaking.

CLICK HERE to see more of Jeremy’s work.