John Usher, Miniature village

picture (October 2003) by Karen Beach, Flickr 

The above image depicts a miniature village as it is situated today in the outer space of a museum devoted to the local history of the commune of Coniston in England's Lake District.

Life and works

This miniature village was created by John Usher (1940-1993) who lived in Coniston all his life. He became a bricklayer and builder by trade, just like his father, grandfather and great-grandfather.

Living in his native house as a young man in the late 1950s, he already showed his delight in making miniature structures, and when  in the 1960s he built his own house, named Brow Close, he set to decorate the garden of his house with miniatures of all kinds of buildings.

family photo of Usher in the 1960s, in his garden amidst his first creations

from the Facebook of the Ruskin Museum

He started with buildings common to most villages, such as cottages, a pub, a bridge, following the style of building as usual in the Lake District.

Later he would also make replicas of famous buildings in the Lake District, such as the Bridge House in Ambleside, the Round House on Belle Isle in Lake Windermere and St Andrew's Church in his hometown Coniston.

Over a period of about 30 years, Usher gradually created an entire village of some 90 miniatures, each about 20 inches high, a complex he named Riverdale.

For the construction of the bases and roofs of the buildings, Usher used gray slate, which he found in the area. The walls were made of other stones or of cement, depending on the nature of the building. Windows were made of perspex, with narrow strips of wood for the window sills and frames. Doors consisted of small pieces of wood.

this picture and the next one by Dave Hawkyard 
as on Google Maps

John Usher passed away in 1993, when he was only in his early 50s. 

He had remained unmarried and had arranged for his estate to benefit a Coniston denomination and some local associations.

Almost all of the miniature buildings were bequeathed to the local Ruskin Museum, devoted to local history. A replica of the local St  Andrew's church found a place in that church.

The Ruskin Museum stored the miniatures for some time to formally arrange that they could be placed in the outdoor area of the museum. They have been situated there since 2000, cared for by volunteers. 

Documentation

* Article by Mariella Landolf, "A model legacy", in: Raw Vision #105, Spring 2020

* Entry about the miniature village on the website of the Ruskin Museum

* An article (September 2018) in a website about trips in England, featuring attractions in the Lake District, including the Ruskin Museum and miniature village

John Usher

Miniature village

Coniston, Lake District, North-west England, England, UK

can be visited in the local Ruskin Museum

Marcel Bernier, Maison décorée / Decorated house

this picture and the next one courtesy of
Francis David

In the image above Marcel Bernier was photographed standing in front of his decorated home when Francis David, a researcher of art environments in France, paid him a visit in the late 1970s, early 1980s. 

Not much has been published on the internet about the life of Marcel Bernier. He was born in 1912, worked at a chemical factory, and retired in 1977.

In the early 1970s he started decorating his house along the rue Maurice Schumann in Creil, a city of some 120.000 inhabitants (2015), 45 km north of Paris in the Oise department in northern France. 

Every year in the summer period Bernier would paint the outside walls, this with the approach: "When the jar is empty, it's over."

Bernier's house has been said to lean against a hill. Indeed, it is located on the southern edge of a hilly area in the city that traditionally has many old limestone quarries. 

This area of quarries is located between rue Robert Schuman and rue du Haut des Tufs and is crossed in length by a walking path Allée des Tufs, which starts near the house of Marcel Bernier (see Google Maps). 

Using the tuff, a soft sandstone, the emptied quarries were traditionally converted into dwellings, called troglodytes. Particularly in the 19th century, when increasing industrialization in Creil drew many workers from the surrounding countryside, living in troglodytes boomed.

photo city of Creil, as on newspaper le Parisien

The image above shows some of the 19th century buildings in the area with troglodytes.

The municipal authorities, who were forced to tolerate this form of housing, allowed residents to live for free, but sought to phase out such housing because of its potential insecurity.

Bernier's house was also part of the troglodyte area, although located at the very edge. 

Around 1990, when he was almost 80 years, Marcel Bernier, for security reasons, also left the house. Maybe he moved to a home for the elderly. At an unknown date in later years he passed away. 

The house was not demolished, but it was left uninhabited, and soon it became obscured by springing green bushes.  

the Allée des tufs begins between the two lampposts on the left,
parts of the facade of Bernier's house appear on the right

as in April 2022

Bernier's decorated house fell into oblivion. When in the late 2020s inquiries were made about the site, the local tourist office did not know of its existence.

So, on the Facebook-page of the city in January 2021, on behalf of the tourist office, residents were asked whether they were familiar with the decorated house. This indeed produced positive responses, with remarks such as: I knew this house all my youth and It was a delight all these colors.

Apparently measures have been taken to give Bernier's house a place in society again. The photo below shows the situation in November 2022 (photo courtesy of Sonia Terhzaz)

Documentation

*  Entry on the website Habitants-paysagistes (Lille Art Museum)

* Article (February 2021) in regional newspaper Le Parisien

Marcel Bernier, Decorated house

Rue Robert Schumann 77

Creil, dept Oise, region Hauts- de-France, France

house left uninhabited for over 30 years

Google Streetview

Armando Tiso, Casa decorata / Decorated house

picture from Google Streetview

Dolo is a city in the northeast of Italy, located about 25 km west of Venice. From west to east the city is bisected by the Naviglio del Brenta (Brenta Canal), once a river but now a canal. 

South of the canal is the Via Brenta Bassa, a road with varied, alternating buildings, such as -about halfway along the road- a small block of three houses, of which the center house is lavishly decorated. 

this picture and the next five courtesy of Giada Carraro

Life and works

These decorations were made by Armando Tiso (1939-2021), who came to live in the house after he, while working as a sailor, was disqualified on medical grounds and had to continue living on a disability pension.

Being in his mid or late forties he wasn't one to go idle and so he found an occupation in decorating the interior and the exterior of his house. For this decorative work he used small pieces of ceramics, which he obtained by crushing all kinds of plates, cups and tiles that he bought at flea markets.

The above and below images give an idea of the colorful patterns Tiso created with those small pieces of ceramics.

It can also be seen that the decoration was not only realized with pieces of ceramics, but that other elements were also added, such as intact cups, bronze figurines, vases and urns, small black characters standing around a goblet or a shield and more of these types of additions.

Tiso not only decorated the interior of his house, but also the area along the street in front of the house and the backyard, overlooking the canal, were richly provided with all kinds of creations. 

Where the front gardens of the neighbors on the left and right are screened off from the street by an open iron fence, Tiso's front garden, as can be seen in the very first image, has a solid stone wall, with a wide top provided with a series of connected characters, including a number of soldiers who seem to be on guard.

The stone wall separating the garden from the street was itself richly decorated, this in such a way that part of the public street was taken up with creations.

The images in this article mainly show the decorations that can be seen from the street.

The relatively small backyard of the house, shown in the image below, apart from a rear door and a small window, is fully equipped with a voluminous ensemble of mostly decorations, an exposition largely shaped like a buffet.

A narrow green strip separates the backyard from the Brenta Canal.

backside of the house, along the canal

Armando Tiso passed away on September 16, 2021. Soon after this happened, a petition -also supported by some people living near Tiso's house- was sent to the mayor of Dolo, asking him to promote that the decorated house would be preserved as a museum. The mayor expressed interest and wrote that he would investigate the conditions and possibilities of preserving the site together with the competent authorities.

At the time of publication of this article, no further information was available on the internet about eventual decisionmaking with regard to the future of the site, but Google Streetview shows that in  June 2022 the decorations still existed.

Documentation

* Entry on the website Costruttori di Babele

* Article in regional newspaper Il Gazzettino (September 2021) following the death of Armando Tiso

* Article by Giada Carraro on her new website Bric-à-Brac Italia

Armando Tiso

Decorated house

via Brenta Bassa 63

30031 Dolo, Metropolitan City of Venice, Veneto region, Italy

can partly be seen from the road

Google Streetview

Henri Dalpez, Maison et jardin décorés / Decorated house and garden

photos of the site by Bouvet Hubert published here with
permission of the Inventaire général du patrimoine Hauts de France

Henri Dalpez' decorated house and garden, depicted above, is located along a road just out Loos-en-Gohelle, a small town of some 7.000 inhabitants in the north of France, about 5 km north-west of the municipality of Lens, which has some 31.000 inhabitants.

The map below shows that Lens is located in the middle of an area referred to as Bassin Minier (Mining area) du Nord Pas-de-Calais.

screenshot from the video "le Bassin Minier Nord Pas de Calais

(YouTube, 2021, 5'13") by Lycée Saint-Cricq

The coal industry, begun in the 1850s, turned the landscape in this part of Northern France into an industrial area with many large buildings and installations of mining companies, many uniform residential areas set up to house miners and their families, and numerous high, hill-shaped mounds of industrial waste. 

In the 1980s coal mining was ended, which meant that the economy and employment of the area changed significantly and that many adjustments had to be made both on an individual and a collective level.

Life and works

Henri Delpaz was born in 1932. His parents had migrated from Spain to France, where his father had found work as an underground miner in Loos-en-Gohelle. The family lived in the house that Delpaz would later inherit and decorate.

In his early twenties Delpaz was drafted into military service to fight in France's war with Algeria (1954-1962). He then became an underground miner, and later established himself as an independent mason. 

It is not known in which years in particular he was in the military and worked as a bricklayer. But it has been reported that in 1959, when he was in his late twenties, he started decorating the house in Loos-en-Gohelle, where he meanwhile lived. It may be that at that age he was already working as a bricklayer.

the front side of the house, facing the street

Creating an art environment

The decorations in Dalpez' art environment include paintings on the exterior walls and small sculptures and other items in the area around the house.

The image above shows the entrance to the house, facing the street. The murals to the left and right of the window and the door show that Dalpez' work can be lighthearted, with pastoral scenes of animals in a green environment, probably in Africa, with zebras, lions and giraffes. The appearance of the lower part of the entrance door is in line with this.

The painting to the left of the door shows a tree trunk in front of a richly decorated shrub. 

It's a special feature of this art environment that the windows of the house became  part of Dalpez' creative project by filling these in with painted panels. In that way no one could see in, and vice versa, of course .....

The image above gives an impression of the decorations on the upper right side of the front wall of  the house. Compared to the other decorations on the front of the house, these are much less atmospheric and illustrative, especially the images of human characters.

The faces that Dalpez painted on the wall often have open mouths, which may be intended to express happiness or surprise. Near the faces are also some numbers, the meaning of which is unknown (a referral to addresses along the street where Dalpez lived?).

The image of a ship in choppy water, at the left, brings back something of the atmosphere that radiates from the front of the house.  Encased in a frame, it looks like a hung painting, but the image is painted directly onto the wall.

Another painted part of a side wall, as shown above, has because of the palms, the zebra and the foliage above, much more the atmosphere of the the lower part of the front wall at the entrance of the house.

The window in the middle is once more provided with a panel that closes the view. It is painted with two faces looking out through a grid of horizontal and vertical iron wires.

And once more there is a lady with an open mouth.

That open mouth, well, maybe Dalpez didn't have any explicit intention with it at all, maybe his way of designing was just how he saw people's faces.

This typical mouth is also present in a number of stand-alone sculptures which colorfully and rather expressive depict various personalities. With their lower bodies resting on a pole, they are arranged in the area around the house, one character guarding the mailbox.

Some sculptures have a number, but it is not known whether this refers to specific persons, just as there is no information available about who or what these sculptures could represent.

In June 2021, Sonia Terhzaz, a Paris-based author of a website with accounts of her visits and conversations with creators of art environments in France (see documentation) visited the site. 

Henri Dalpez, now 89 years old, said he had not maintained his creation for several years, and that in his opinion the paintwork was quite ugly as a result. He couldn't understand why someone would come all the way from Paris to see this work and have a conversation with him.

The view of Dalpez's house on Google streetview, dating from September 2022, at the bottom of this post, shows that the decorations have somewhat faded over the years, but that it is still possible to get an impression of the artworks.

An uncertain future

In correspondence with the Inventaire général du patrimoine, conducted in late April 2023, it is noted that Henri Dalpez's house is no longer inhabited. Searching the local press for more information on this unfortunately had no results.

There is also no mention of activities aimed at preserving the site. There is a good chance that the decorations and small sculptures will be lost.

Then all that remains is the memory of a colorful creation, as reflected for example in the image below.

Documentation

* Article (2021), with a report of her visit to the site and meeting with Dalpez, by Sonia Terhzaz on her website Cartographie des Rocamberlus, 

* Article in  l'Inventaire général du patrimoine des Hauts-de-France  (general inventory of Hauts-de-France heritage)

Henri Dalpez

Decorated house and garden  

569 Chemin des Croisettes

62750 Loos-en-Gohelle, dept Pas-de-Calais, region Hauts-de-France, France

can be seen from the street

Google streetview (September 2022)