Art, Artistry, Artisan-Johnny Two Thumbs

Ask most people who's the best tattoo artist in Singapore, someone would inevitably mention Johnny Two Thumbs who's real name was Indra Bahadur , a Nepalese who had learnt the art of tattoo in India. He came to Singapore in the 50's and passed away in the 80's leaving his tattoo business to his second son, Richard. Johnny Two Thumbs got his nickname because he had 2 right thumbs ! A tattoo artist with 2 right thumbs, how cool is that?

I am trying to fit a tattoo post in my miniature blog because I have told Kiva that if she showed me hers, I would show her mine. In contrast to her freshly inked tattoo , so bold and beautiful, mine looks puny, old and rather unimaginative .

I did this when I was in my 20s, a fresh graduate, just starting a career and feeling rather adult. I wanted to do something to mark the beginning of an "exciting journey" , a new phase in my life, and after a night of partying, me and 2 girlfriends went to the famous Johnny Two Thumbs.

I was crazy about sun-faces then and was wearing a pendant like the one in the picture. So I told Richard from J2T to use it for my tattoo. The 1st piece of "art" I bought where my body is my canvas. My 1st indelible miniature art. It cost me S$50.00 and a hell load of pain because of where I decided to place my tattoo. (By the way, many had grabbed from my foot what they thought they have dropped onto the floor only to find out that it was my body art! ) It was painful because it was close to the bone and that's the thinnest skin. I was glad when the 10 minutes was over and that I had decided against colours. Richard told me later that there were some artists who would refuse to do foot because of the pain!

My tattoo look so dated now. I realised for the 1st time when I took the pictures that it is also blurring. Despite all that, I love my tat. Absolutely no regrets! For me, my little sun face speaks of an era and a time when life was an exciting new adventure, And I was immortal, And that I could do anything. I don't know why I never wanted a 2nd one because tattoos are addictive. Maybe it's because I don't feel like my "adventure" has ended. I may no longer feel immortal but thanks to my new found interest in miniature making, I sure believe I can still do anything I put my mind to.

New Books

My very 1st dolls' house book was purchased years before I was interested in miniatures. It was Faith Eaton's Classic Dolls' Houses (1994 Edition) which I bought for S$10.00 at a Kinokuniya sale. I remember because I don't ever remove price tags from my books. I am a sort of bibliophile and my special interest is reference books on art & craft, architecture, culture and interior designs.

I remember not being very impressed with the book because it consisted mainly of black and white pictures. I did think however, that the subject matter was interesting because it featured historical dolls' houses. Today, I realised that these houses included some of the ones that I have fallen in love with, like the Mon Plaisir, The Thorne Rooms and Colleen Moore's Fairy Castle. I also realised that I bought the book at a steal because now, a new hard cover 1994 Edition is being sold at US$113.22 through Amazon.

Since then it has been quite an uphill task trying to find books on miniatures and dolls' houses here. Slightly over a year ago, I actually blogged about my frustration when I was just starting on the hobby. Researching has always been one of the 1st thing I do when I pick up anything new. So buying books on the subject has always been my modus operandi.

You can see from my shelf that my collection was very modest. I had more reference books on India than dolls' houses. Even then not all these books are on miniatures and the last stack with the Chinese characters were bought from Taiwan.

That is, until my visit to Kinokuniya yesterday. I had wanted to buy only 2 books, Orhan Pamuk's "My Name is Red" because I lost it at the airport when I was going to KL and Patrick Suskind's "Perfume". Well, I came home with 14 books, all related to my hobby, 4 on the cultural aspects and the rest on miniatures. I probably bought more books on minis and dolls' houses yesterday than the whole of last year minus the ones from Taiwan (I went crazy there too because I thought I better grabbed them when I could find them).

These are the books on dolls' houses:

Books On India :

And all that were bought after I have gone to the National Library to borrow these books:

I can no longer complain that there are not enough reference books here. It was a bumper crop of books yesterday and I didn't even go to Borders!

Perhaps interest in dolls' houses and miniatures have grown in our little country. Just this week, there was an article in one of our Chinese papers on miniaturists in Singapore. You can read about it of you wish because snowfern had translated the article into English in her blog!

Finally, I say. That is good news, very good news indeed!

Art, Artisan & Artistry-Kiva

A Toast! And a big thank you to Kiva Atkinson, IGMA ARTISAN, Queen of Stargazies (nope, I don't know what that means but she name some of her food that) and all food, small and beautiful. Entitled "The Poisoner In The Box", the platter above is just one of the many macarbe, weird and over-the-top wonderful work of Kiva that I love. The pic clicks through to her website.

Yes, I am a huge fan of Kiva and have collected as many of her Indian Feast Meal Sets as I can lay my hands on for My Maharajah's Palace. And I tell you, not only does her food look real, they even feeeeeel real, it is unreal.

On 2/11/2009, Kiva passed me the Kreativ Blogger Award for this obscure blog that has hitherto been just an index blog for my other one, My Maharajah's Palace. No more though, now that I have re-titled my post, I will stop posting the ongoings of my palace here.

I thought a good start to the change is for me to celebrate Kiva's new blog called "Kiva's Miniatures". Yes, our friend has finally succumbed to the world of blogging and succumbed she did with a vengence. 55 posts in October alone !

So do pop over and pay her a visit. It is everything she is, funny, passionate, beautiful, creative. Even her comments are worth a read and if you leave her one, she will most certainly reply. That's what endears me to her and I am sure, she will you too, in no time at all.

And to whet your appetite, here's some of her work she thinks is goofy :



Bon appetit! Now, go say hi to the weird and wonderful Kiva.

PS If you want to know who I pass this award to, you will need to click

My Maharajah's Palace-Bazaar-Rolla n Ro

This is an excerpt from the post which 1st appeared on Day 93 of My Maharajah's Palace:

The 2nd scene for the bazaar is completed and it is of the opening day of the store. There was a musical performanace by the gypsies led by the Rollas. Rolla is on the tabla and Ro on sitar.

The other dancers too, take their place on the stage, frozen in their starting pose before the tabla begins.

If you look to the left of the stage, you'll see Sumaiya in a flowy orange sari and matching veil, her famous mehndi-ed hand around her man's neck.

And even the resident mystic has taken her place, shielded by a panel of delicately embroidered tapestries and surrounded by the various heirloom pieces from Rosanna. There's Ganesh in his lotus position on OM's table and Sissy, peeping through Sans! copy-bag.


Jai is sitting in the VIP seat.

A crowd, drawn by the music has also gathered.

And before they can sing "Jai" Ho (in honour of their VIP), dancing in the crowd has started.

The lone girl in the ribbon of orange veil with no partner can't help swaying to Rolla's drums and you can see she risks spilling and dropping her jug of goat's milk,kindly supplied by Sylvia.

A mother laden with a baby and 2 pails of wood and charcoal has to stop too as her baby gurgles in delight and wriggles to the beat.

I added her veil which is plain cotton with a mere slice of ribbon at the edge bought at the S$2 store.


A group of palace servant girls with their brass pots filled to the brim sit firmly on their heads.

They take their place at the far right hand corner. Their work cloth is made of fabric from S$2 store and SuZ's stash. The rings of cloth holding their pots are the same ones I used to make holders for handbags.

Then there are the students with heavy loads of their girl friend's books in pink basket (ebay junk to some)

or her shabby satchel and more text books, (more ebay junk)

They stand right at the back.

Only 1 couple seem oblivious to the celebration, incredulously occupied with the Royal Fan.

Standing behind the stage, they stare at the ridiculous size of the peacock feather on the fan. Comparing it with their albino baby peahen, they wish they have a giant one instead.

And here are the wares at the store:

For a start, we have the tapestries which are actually bookmarks.

Then there are plates of powder paint fronting the stall which are actually incense cones from Bangkok sitting on Thai plates. These incense cones represent gulal in India, the powder paint are used to celebrate the Festival of Colours or Holi.

The carved wooden toys were bought from my regular bead shop in Chinatown.


while the cloth ones were from Bangkok

Then there are the cushions on centre stage while

heritage Indian painted toys on "6 in 1" and traditional drums flank the right.

An update of the flower stall next door:

I have added dried flowers to the topiaries and they look like the have bore fruits!


Finally, the aerial view of Rolla n Ro.