. . . . My interests have been magic lanterns and also puppets to
a limited degree, and now paper/miniature theater. And at home we
are packed and I could set up a small museum since I also am the keeper
of a lot of "real" family heirlooms . . . .
Apart from the real antiques, I have made replicas of about 12 magic lanterns and have about the same number of real ones.
Here's a full-size replica, from the days of gas lights, that weighs
75 pounds and a miniature of the same antique, 12 pounds .
I am always one to try to make a little money on the side by entertaining either as a lantern showman or some other fanciful gimmicked person. After seeing paper theater on the internet, it struck me that it would be maybe profitable to do a version of miniature theater using single personages that did one liners as in the past as crowd pleasers but to use that idea in miniature.
So I started building my first proscenium with that in mind (photo
above). It is called The Brass Globe Theater and will feature the
Cherokee Kid. (The brass balls will go on top of the columns,
left and right of the proscenium.)
Later on I will be building a large wood model of Shakespeare's
Globe stage, not sure what productions to do though since everything
needs to be condensed down like Reader's Digest. It is tough
scripting magic lantern slides and even tougher to condense existing
script for one of Shakespeare's plays.
Also am descended from a lineage of practicing blacksmiths and put
on historic blacksmithing demos for those interested.