♪♪ Mark: People have always been fascinated with miniature objects.

There's people that work in ceramics.

There's needleworkers.

There's glassblowers.

There's jewelers.

There's people that make food.

Just about everything that's made in full size is made in miniature by someone somewhere in the world.

♪♪ [Tool buzzing] I work with wood, and I make miniature furniture.

♪♪ The pieces that I do are generally reproductions of antique furniture.

I usually work from books, antique magazines, or auction house catalogs.

I've tried to re-create things to be as realistic-looking as possible.

♪♪ I work in 1/12 scale, which is one inch to the foot, so that my furniture will fit into scale rooms.

♪♪ Pat: Mark does a lot of different styles that not many other people do.

He does a lot of Japanese furniture, and he does a lot of the Mission style.

The quality of the work is precise and delicate and phenomenal.

♪♪ [wood lathe running] I'm making a bow-back Windsor chair.

I've done close to 200 of these now.

You can't do it on a regular lathe.

The lathes that I use I get from a jewelry supply company.

[lathe buzzing] You can make all the parts separate before you start assembling anything.

I drill all the holes, the corresponding holes for all the spindles and the legs and the bow-back piece in the back.

Then I start carving the seat.

♪♪ [wood file scraping seat] I fit all the spindles in place and fit the bow-back piece in place.

Then you can glue all those pieces in the seat itself so you have a completed upper section of the chair.

♪♪ And then the leg structure is all attached to that.

[Blows] So basically these are made exactly like a real chair would be made.

It's just a smaller scale than full-sized woodworking.

♪♪ I grew up in Cincinnati.

I'm the second oldest of seven kids.

♪♪ I've always loved nature, so I was always walking a lot.

Let's go in this way.

But most of my family was actually into sports.

My father was an NBA basketball referee, so while the other folks in the family were out playing basketball, I was in the basement making something, making some kind of mess.

I went to the Philadelphia College of Art, now the University of the Arts.

I studied woodworking and furniture design.

Then shortly after I graduated, I moved to the Bay Area.

I started working at a place that made all the little cars and trees for architectural models.

That's where I met Pam Throop.

She'd come in to shop for supplies for her scale houses, and she was really my mentor.

She was building houses, and so I was making some furniture pieces to go inside of them.

That's what got me started in miniatures.

This is the bulk of my collection in here.

So this is one of my Queen Anne chairs that is upholstered with some crewelwork done by Pat Richards.

The white background, that is the actual fabric, and then Pat stitched on separate threads to create flowers and creatures.

♪♪ Patricia: I live in New York City, and Mark's in Oregon, but he'll sometimes send me a piece of furniture that he's finished.

I'll make cushions for him.

I base things on historic pieces, but with crewelwork, you do have to fill in all the details by eye, so you truly are painting with thread.

♪♪ Mark: The original of this highboy is in the Metropolitan Museum in New York.

So this is japanned, which is the process of painting gold and silver paints on top of black.

This is a collaboration that I did with Mary O'Brien.

She does all the painting on it.

Mary: We've been working for over 20 years together.

He makes furniture, he likes tools.

I prefer the paintbrush, so we match up well.

It's country painting style with lots of brushstrokes.

And the drawers open.

Yes.

Yep.

Yep, they all do.

You have to kind of tip them a little bit to get them all out.

My late partner used to do these miniature pastels.

This is just like the beautiful landscapes where we went hiking a lot.

♪♪ I started teaching in 2000 at the International Guild of Miniature Artisans.

They've been doing that school for 40 years in this small town called Castine in Maine.

It was the first time I had ever taught anything.

That's when I really found my art family.

I never felt so appreciated.

Patricia: He's a great teacher.

So patient with all the students' different learning processes.

So Guild School is our Brigadoon.

Blossoms once every June, and when we're done, it closes and goes away until the next year.

Mark: In making miniature furniture, it's really nice to have the actual object in front of you, which I have done with several of my own pieces.

♪♪ So this is a piece of Japanese furniture that I own that I re-created in miniature, and Mary O'Brien painted the panels, and there's a little slot underneath here for your finger that you don't see to open the drawer.

So there's no handles.

I did the same thing on this, but it's really tiny, so you can just go in with tweezers or something to open the drawer.

♪♪ In Chicago, we have probably the biggest miniature show in the world.

People come from all over the world to buy and to sell there.

Pat: The fascination with miniatures, I think it's because you create an environment that maybe you can't afford in real life but that you could do in miniature.

Mark: This is one that just has a more - of a floral pattern.

- Right.

Most of us are working at home quietly alone, and a few times a year, we come to the shows to connect with customers.

The show has been very good.

Yeah.

Kathleen: Mark has been a wonderful artisan for as long as I've been collecting, and I have many, many pieces of his throughout the museum.

You know, I need to talk to you about a new project.

- OK. - So let's think about what we're gonna do.

- Something Kentucky.

- OK. Something Kentucky.

Give me some information about things you like, and we'll find something that we both like, yeah.

Kathleen: OK. ♪♪ Mark: I'm here with my colleagues that I work with, my needlework friends.

Patricia: When we get together here or up at school, it's old home week.

Pat: We come from all over, but it has become a community.

Mark: This is our newest piece, and I put the background colors on, and then I send it to Mary, and she does all the decorative painting on top of that.

Do you do it under a mic--like, a mic-- - I wear goggles - Goggles.

Mary: And they're getting stronger and stronger.

[laughing] Customer: Beautiful.

Beautiful work.

Mary: Yes.

[Both laughing] [laughing] Carol: We get--we get to tackle you.

Mark: One thing that was special this year is some of my family came up to join me.

Ellen: The color is beautiful.

Mark: I like this color, too.

This is more teal.

Ellen: I do, too.

Tina: I like that, too.

Yeah, yeah.

We're so proud of him.

Tina: He's in his element, that is for sure.

Seeing him in his element is wonderful.

Talking about his pieces and what made him think of the colors to use, and it's been very interesting to watch his side of--what his business, what he does.

And, you know, makes me a little verklempt because, I mean, that's my cousin, and he is--he is amazing.

And if they fit just exactly in there, ♪♪