In 1975, Arnold's widow Kathryn donated nearly 800 individual miniatures carved by her husband to the Adirondack Museum at Blue Mountain Lake, New York. The gift represented a virtually complete collection of his life's work.
Bennie Arnold's carvings will soon be the focus of a new exhibition. A World in Miniature: The Carvings of Bennie Arnold will be on display in the galleries of Traditional Arts in Upstate New York (TAUNY) in Canton, N.Y. from February 9 through May 17, 2008.
Curated by Lynn Ekfelt of Canton, the exhibit will include approximately 100 miniatures on loan from the Adirondack Museum. The exhibit will showcase furniture, larger models of antique vehicles, miscellaneous cravings, biographical information about Bennie Arnold, as well as the worktable where he got them all done.
Bennie Arnold was a native of Naumburg, N.Y. After suffering a heart attack in 1944, he took early retirement and turned to carving as a way to occupy his time. Over the next twenty-five years, working at a small table in a corner of his kitchen, he produced more than 800 detailed miniatures.
The one-twelfth scale replicas include chairs, tables, carriages, cabinets, wagons, hat racks, stepladders, butter churns, a hearse, sleighs, hay rakes, wheelbarrows, plows, bookcases, and even a birthday cake.
Each miniature was carved with dentist's drills, files, and a jack knife. Each piece is an exact scale copy of a real object. All of the miniatures function as did their large counterparts: drawers and doors open and close, folding chairs fold, and wheels turn. It was not unusual for Arnold to take several days to complete one small piece.
Furniture makes up almost one fourth of the Bennie Arnold collection held by the Adirondack Museum. Chairs were particularly favored subjects and the museum has 407 – no two alike. Animals and people are also represented in the collection — rendered in a larger scale – including a circus wagon with pipe organ, driver, and a team of four horses leading a parade of animals. The circus wagon and chairs are on display at the museum in the Roads and Rails: the Adirondacks in the Age of Horses exhibit. -- www.adkmuseum.org
