Pettiness in the Miniatures Community—it’s a thing!

After two years of blog silence; I'm here to vent. Wanna hear the newest drama? It's all about miniatures. The dollhouse kind. 

The Amanita Cottage,
now featured in 2 magazines.

Last September, I submitted my Amanita Cottage dollhouse as an exhibit at the local Miniature Show. It won Best In Show. I was over the moon. I had a fun time vending at this show as well. If you don't know, I now sell miniature kits.

There were not a lot of attendees during that weekend, nor tons of vendors. The show, compared to years ago, was anemic; and there were few new vendors. A lot of the merch was dated. However, there were a couple of new standouts at the event.

Come the end of the show, I packed up and left, exhausted. I only noticed like weeks and weeks afterwards, when I finally got around to unpacking my dollhouse, that the Best In Show ribbon was gone and a first-place ribbon had replaced it. Someone had taken my ribbon.

I was shocked. But guess I shouldn’t have been.

I thought it was one of the other contestants that might have switched it, but someone who is in the in-group at the show whispered to me after my TikTok post about it went moderately viral, that it was the show organizer who changed it after these were awarded.

Now mind you, I know it’s just a ribbon. I have my video showing the right ribbon on there when we got there Sunday morning. But it’s not really the ribbon itself that is the issue. It’s the principle.

I am trying not to be petty, and trying my hardest to be civil, but I have just had enough of this situation. Especially now.

The local show had been canceled for Covid, and then the show owner did not resume it for a few years, instead focusing on the bigger show in a nearby city. I contacted the owner, and asked her what was going on, and she told me she had an ailing husband who required care and she didn’t have enough energy or time to do it.

I offered to help. I offered even to take over all the organizing and legwork, whatever she needed, to get the local show back up and running. I think it’s a thing the community locally really needs. But she refused, and not very politely to be honest. I offered to at least help her update the stagnant website, and again, she said no without the slightest courtesy or politeness.

There are a few people who are part of her hive that help out during the show, and it’s shocking to me that none of them stepped up, to be honest. We all have lives and whatnot, but there’s no shame in asking for and giving help when it’s needed. This is a legacy event for miniaturists locally, and it should be a priority. I get that the neighboring city’s show is bigger, but that doesn’t mean that equal energy locally wouldn’t make this one as big or bigger.

I’ve run events a lot in my life. I am proud of the Oregon Regency Society and how it’s grown into its own thing now, with a new magician at its head. I know what it’s like to be virtually alone, with people who promise to contribute and then who just don’t do the work and fade into silence. Honestly, it’s made me more wary of inviting people in to help, because it’s more work to get some folks fully engaged than it is to just do the things myself. I understand being a control freak when your ‘helpers’ leave you no choice but to be one.

Then the people who said they would, but didn’t help, show up to the events and they pick on all the things that weren’t done, or that aren’t perfect, even though it was their lack of effort that made it that way; leaving all their promised work in the hands of the one person organizing it. It is a symptom I have seen in countless communities like this. I’ve seen it so many times.

I have to keep in mind that the show owner is an octogenarian; a definitive boomer, and she her cantankerousness and vitriol has been getting more and more concentrated with each passing year. It’s viscous like motor oil. She has no chill.

At this past show, she was simply insupportable to new vendors and the participants too. Just rude as all hell. I heard her use the term “pickaninnies” under her breath, about a group of small children excitedly running from table to table. I had to look it up, as I had no idea what the word meant. I guess growing up outside of the racist zeitgeist of this country has had some advantages.

I had a little exchange with her over a friend of mine winning the prize during the show, nothing major. But she was sourer after that. She doesn’t like me. I don’t need her to. But I realized after that person said what they did, that maybe she did change the award.

It was so petty. So small. I made a vague post about the smallness in the community on TikTok, and it went crazy. Like 300K interactions or something. But I just said that someone took the ribbon. I had no suspicion it was her up until the bird whistled.

There are a set group of vendors that sell at every show, and a lot of them are loyal to her. I get that. It’s wonderful, actually. That’s what you want in a show. That's a goal for any vendor event.

But they seem so loyal that they are doing themselves a disservice. They accept her behavior and to me that’s just counter to their interests as vendors. Especially when you see her neglect and her rudeness having a negative effect on what is a legacy event that has been operating for years in the city—something the community of miniature enthusiasts can rely on as a gathering place. If I were a regular vendor, it would piss me off to see that the show runner is undermining the show and dragging it down with her stubborn insistence on refusing help when she really, truly needs it, and treating new people and attendees so abysmally.

I don’t know if there’s an organizing board, but if there is, I doubt they’re effective as she is running this thing virtually on her own, with no improved or modified systems for years. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, I guess. If the show was a house, it would still have brown-orange shag carpet and orange Formica countertops. She’s not open to modification, or growth. And it shows.

A lot of people who attend and some vendors are unhappy with the whole thing. I remember seeing social media comments about it after the 2019 show that included the words: dank space, dreary, dreadful, sparse, depressing. That’s not good.

One of many comments I saw on my TikTok post was: “There’s a miniature show here?” Nobody knows about it locally except the people who have always known about it. She doesn’t advertise in any really impactful way. She does national miniature magazines. And online. But local miniaturists don’t even know about it.

She’s so resistant to help and cooperation—and here we have a vibrant local community of miniaturists; and seen from social media alone, a spectrum of artisans and sellers that could fill the show to Chicago levels if allowed, with just local people. She has the resources but refuses to use them.

I decided to throw out the idea of doing a show myself. Form a more flexible show; an inclusive one, with a fresher take on things, fewer dated offerings, fewer resellers and more artists; and that drew a friend on board. We weren’t thinking huge scale right away. Just fun little gatherings and possibly someday, when we could afford it, a larger show. We never looked at this existing show as competition. We just marked it as a shared goal. We weren’t taking anything from anyone.

We thought we could put something on offer for miniature vendors and enthusiasts to both participate in. We set up a really modern, bright and clean little venue and created an idea for an event; a tea party with fancy hats. We asked that the attendees build a miniature scene on their hats, and we would hold a contest for the coolest one.

We sent out a save-the-date

We are pretty delighted with this idea and envision a parade of absurdly adorable hats with tiny scenes on them; with creativity through the roof. It is interactive and doesn’t just sell something to participants, it involves them.  We would have vendors, a few vetted ones, with cool, new things on offer for the show attendees. But all in all, just a small scale, super-fun event.

We were so excited to post it. We secured a venue, and were given available dates, which were in the off-season, as the vendor was going to help us make this feasible for our first event by working with a little flexibility on payments until we sold enough tickets. They were super-affordable for the deposit, and we were set to cover it. It’s hard to find venues that do that. Really hard.

We farmed up a mailing list that included many of the vendors that attend the local show. We sent off the event save-the-date with all wonderful intentions and real excitement for it.

We received an email almost immediately from one of the loyal local participants, asking if we ran the idea by the show owner, and if we'd asked her if the date didn’t coincide with her show.

She had not posted the date of her 2025 show, her 2024 show was in September, so we decided the October date was perfect, just before the holiday season, off-season for venue cost, after her usual date for her show, and less parking congestion in town.

I was immediately irritated by the email, to be fair. I don’t think we owe the show owner any courtesy on the matter. Maybe if she hadn’t been so rude and territorial, we might have thought to coordinate directly with her event and make it a complement to it. But we never considered that as an option, because of our experience with her as vendors and attendees.

She is not the Godfather and nobody who wants to organize miniature-related events in this town is obligated to kiss the proverbial ring to get her blessing. Sorry.

I was frank… We were moving forward with our date, it is what was available for the venue. I said, if it interferes with the big-show’s date, then she can shift her date. She has the flexibility. We don’t. I said if they coincide, then it’s just another cool event for miniaturists who are in town to go to. I don’t see a problem either way. In that discussion, I also told the emailer quite openly, that I didn’t really want to work with her, because she was rude AF.

I uploaded the official event poster with the venue named on it. Tea party tickets sold. A couple of vendors signed up.

And then the venue ghosted us. They don’t even answer emails or voicemails.

Then a little bird told me that it was a deliberate sabotage by a ‘loyalist’.

If this is true, then it’s just gross, honestly. How petty and shitty and small. This is a community around something that’s supposed to be beautiful, and joyful and full of imagination and creative energy. But instead, it’s being influenced by angry blue-hairs who feel threatened by change and innovation.

I don’t get this mentality. In almost all hobby-interest led groups I’ve ever been in, there’s always that element. That nasty, petty and sour element that just can’t stand to see change or growth. Who turn things that bring happiness and joy into nastiness and competitiveness; who make things that are supposed to be fun and delightful, not. Interest and hobby communities are not avenues for narcissists to create their own little fiefdoms. I'm so very tired of people like this. It's so gross.

All we want to do was make accessible events for the miniature community.

We aren’t giving up by any means. I have paused the tea-party caterer (who is STELLAR by the way), and am on the hunt for a new venue.

I don’t know how much bandwidth I have for this kind of mickey-mouse politicking these days. It is what drove me out of the Oregon Regency Society, and what burnt me out of peopling. I think it also contributed greatly to the anxiety disorder I’ve been struggling with for a decade.

But I’ll keep trying  until I can’t. I’m a little deflated, but not discouraged. The old guard needs to retire and let other people with new ideas to step in. It’s like they want to kill the community if they can't control it, rather than pass it on to the new guard. It’s so bizarre and selfish. I don’t get it.