the end of the rainbow.

i first posted about this 'life size' (these words somehow seem, not quite right) dollhouse by heather benning a few years ago here.  now, as then, i feel haunted by this experiment/project, especially lately as i contemplate what it means to build a new home out of all that is abandoned /  forgotten / misplaced. 

when i was a little girl, my father had started to build me a dollhouse. this meant the world to me. we didn't have much money, and watching him attach scalloped edge after scalloped edge to the roof was something i still think about vividly. it was never finished....and when he passed and i was let back into his house, it still stood there unfinished high on a shelf, lost at sea; it's pale, unstained wooden skin harshly contrasting with the dark wood panelling of the walls of the living room i first learned to color in. 

there is something about both of these lonely, un-lived in things that give me a kind of dark hope for the future.