- The artist has immortalized several iconic buildings in the Delta with her detailed miniatures.
Take a visit to the Museum of the Mississippi Delta in Greenwood, and in just one room you can visit iconic restaurants, juke joints, and other historic and memorable places in the Delta. Welcome to the magical miniature world of Meridian native Lee Harper.
Lee is a larger-than-life kind of person. She is a big personality who hugs people when she first meets them. She is a happy person, yet she is frustrated because she can’t create all the ideas that swim in her head – not due to a lack of ability, but because there simply aren’t enough hours in the day.
“I used to love to decorate my house,” she laughs. “But all I want to do now is create my art. It has consumed me. I want to get as much as possible done before my time is up!”
While her personality is big, the art Lee creates is small – very small. Her artwork consists of perfect scale models of treasured places in Mississippi, some still existing, while others exist only in memories. The work is mesmerizing and accurate in every detail.
Lee didn’t plan to be a miniature artist. It started fifteen years ago when her son was a young boy.
“I really have a disdain for Elf on a Shelf,” admits Lee. “But I guess I like the concept because at Halloween I thought it would be hilarious to have a skeleton doing something funny each day. I did it each day for a week leading up to Halloween and my son loved it.”
Each day the scene got more intricate, and her husband posted them on Facebook.
“People loved it!”
It became an annual tradition which she also shared with her niece and nephews.
“But they got older, and clearly didn’t care anymore, so I started doing more obscure history scenes and true crime events.”
During that time, Lee was painting commissions for others, but the miniatures she created were strictly for her. An active supporter of the arts in her adopted city of Oxford, Lee was invited to submit a piece for the annual Christmas ornament auction at the Powerhouse Art Center.
“I wanted to make something really cool and different.”
She created a miniature version of The Hoka, an Oxford institution owned by the late Ron Shapiro.
“Everyone loved it and several people wanted one. Ever since I’ve been going gangbusters!”
The work Lee does is sentimental.
“I do a lot of commissions, and there are always interesting stories about places that are important to people. I’m especially interested in buildings and places that no longer exist.”
Many of her works can be seen in her book, Tiny Oxford Volume 1: Mississippi Memories in Miniature.
“Only one of the buildings in the book still exists today.”
Lee has now immortalized several iconic buildings in the Delta with her detailed miniatures.
“I love the entire process. I put on many hats as I go, from researcher to investigator to genealogist, then to maker, engineer, bricklayer, and roofer. I’m actually putting a roof on a building today!”
Each piece begins with research, which Lee loves.
“I seek out photos and even look at blogs posted by travelers. If I can find a Google Earth aerial image, that helps me tremendously, because seeing the roofline gives me perfect proportions.”
Even then, Lee admits, it’s a matter of eyeballing something to make sure it looks right.
“There is a lot of trial and error involved in what I do. I keep moving things around until I feel good about it, then I glue it.”
