The Last Dinosaur “Latest blog below on dioramas. About one I’m doing now. Political stuff lurking in it. But mainly cultural criticism of American branding and marketing everything. Politics is little more than ‘messages’ in the great ‘medium’ of the culture at a particular point in history. Here, this is experienced through the perspective of a […]

Product metaphors, like Irish Spring, is a ripe area for symbolism and dioramas. Here is another product metaphor based diorama. In the old office is an empty can of sweet peas from the Green Giant brand. A picture of the “jolly” Green Giant in the logo top of the can. A reference to the mythology […]

Spring in Ohio has been elusive this year. One day you think it’s here and the next day it snows. What if Spring could simply come out of a box. Of course, this would be the objective if I was a creative director at the ad firm that has the account for Irish Spring. Reporting […]

Killer Raccoons 2! (Premiere night at Graumans Chinese Theater in Hollywood) Summing the past few weeks up. After creating the “I Think I Can Team” at the Olympics and “Professor Galaxy,” I did a series of six small idiomatic dioramas based around popular phrases such as “thrown under the bus,” and “that train has left […]

“They were thrown under the bus.” A new area for me. Mini dioramas based on popular idiomatic phrases such as “thrown under the bus” or “drain the swamp.” I’ve downloaded a number of lists of idioms from Google search. But, might it go further than just idioms to encompass other areas of so-called comments or […]

The Starlight Jazz Club (part of the LA Ford 1950s dealership diorama project) NOTE: Before reading below, press play on the music at end of this post … then scroll back up to here to start reading it while Chico’s Stella By Starlight is playing in the background. ____________________________________________________ By John Fraim The power of […]

Here, more of an intellectual exercise that requires participation of the viewer. In effect, the viewer becomes the absent students in the diorama. The viewer/student is given four pieces of a question/puzzle being exposed. The first piece of the puzzle is the large blackboard on the right full of math calculations and formulas. This blackboard […]

We arrive at the diarama somewhat like we arrive at other places in life that offer more enigma than answers. An empty classroom without a professor at the front. Everyone is gone from the scene. An empty classroom … We look into an empty college classroom. A wall on the left of the diorama and […]

What if the little engine had to compete in extreme ski jumping? (3/3/18) The Little Engine That Could is an illustrated children’s book that became widely known in the United States after publication in 1930 by Platt & Munk. The story is used to teach children the value of optimism and hard work. Based on a […]

Concept and original model completed over one night (2/26/18). Created for the monthly model challenge for the IPMS (International Plastic Modeler’s Society). I just joined the organization made up of the greatest model makers around the world. I was blown away by the IPMS convention in Columbus a few weeks ago and decided it would […]