The Thomas T. Taber Museum will be featuring exquisitely-rendered miniature room settings as its holiday offering this year. Young and old, female and male, child or childlike, will enjoy approximately ninety room settings created by Williamsport native Becky Bird. The settings will be on display in the Community Room of the museum from Thursday, December 7, 2017 until Saturday, January 20, 2018.
The guest curator for the exhibit, Becky Bird, designed the vignettes of life over an approximate three and one half year period, shopping for miniatures on eBay, Etsy, at flea markets and at antique shops. Designing them was totally unplanned, as Becky explains “I was on eBay to sell a vintage toy, when I was instantly captivated by a miniature.” And the rooms began to emerge. The vignettes include household rooms from Colonial America to a Jacobean bedroom in Europe with a heavily-curtained four poster bed. Businesses are rendered in minute detail including an auto mechanic shop, a silversmith, a beauty parlor of the 1950s, and a billiards hall of the 19th century. Many of the rooms reflect the Victorian aesthetic including a bridal shop and a hat shop for ladies, a funeral within a church, and a men’s haberdashery. Her creations also include a tribute to Peter Pan, Beauty and the Beast, an ‘aquarium’, and garden settings.
Growing up in Williamsport, Becky (nee Stadt) was the daughter of Betty Eberhardt Stadt. Mrs. Stadt was a gilder of picture frames, working for many including the well-known collector of Victoriana Sam Dornsife.
Becky’s marriage to Joe Bird took her to Cogan Station, but there was always ‘a fondness in my heart’ for Williamsport. She taught kindergarten and children’s ministry.
For the past several years, the miniature room settings were on display at the Eagles Mere Historical Museum. The rooms are displayed in a series of glass-fronted cabinets. After the exhibit ends, the room settings will be displayed throughout the Taber Museum, as a permanent part of the collection. Bird has graciously donated the room settings with contents, the to bring joy to children and the child-like in heart and to evoke memories’.
