These tiny scenes from Phoenix's Paige Hammond give followers ‘all the emotions’: Made in Arizona

Picture it: a vintage desktop computer, complete with a chunky monitor and a mouse connected to a cable, sits on an old wooden desk. A cat relaxes on the desk chair. In an open drawer, letters in sealed envelopes are ready to be sent. A fish floats in a tank on a nearby shelf full of books. It’s a familiar, somewhat vintage scene.

But the whole thing is a) made out of clay, and b) built on a tiny, dollhouse-size scale.

The artist is Phoenix sculptor Paige Hammond, who spends up to 40 hours crafting these tiny scenes, many of which depict worlds from the not-so-distant past.

She posts videos of her creations on Instagram and TikTok, where her hundreds of thousands of fans leave comments saying the pieces “just do something” to them as they marvel at the accuracy and specificity.

Hammond joined The Show to share a deeper understanding of the tender emotions that underpin her sculptures — which Hammond describes as “miniatures.”

Full conversation

PAIGE HAMMOND: It's kind of just anything that's not its usual scale. Most people have like 1/12 scale or 1/6 scale or a certain scale that they like, but I don't really like to measure. I just like to kind of do my own little thing, and it pretty much is just anything smaller than the usual item, I would say.

SAM DINGMAN: And you do these in a couple different formats, right? You have made like little recreations of like the Scholastic Book Fair in miniature. So sometimes it's like a little scene, but sometimes you also just make a very small, like vintage iPod.

How do you think about the final form of it when you start making it? Do you see the final version of it in your mind ahead of time, or do you just kind of start sculpting and see where it goes?

HAMMOND: I feel like it depends on the project, but I definitely, like the way my brain is, I just see it, and then I kind of like I'm able to make it happen. I'm not actually a good drawer at all, so like 2D is not my thing at all.

But for some reason 3D, I've always been able to close my eyes and just kind of visualize it, especially with like the nostalgic stuff that I've done. It's very like reminiscent, and I can just picture it in my head.

DINGMAN: Well that's what I wanted to ask you about, because there is such a strong note of nostalgia in your work. I mean, the Scholastic Book Fair, there's an Etch A Sketch.

When did you start seeing these vintage-y items in your mind?

HAMMOND: It's kind of hard to explain, but I always joke around with my family because they're like, "Paige, you remember everything." And I really do. I just have a really good, almost like photographic memory of like my childhood and stuff like that.

It's very much like I'll look at pictures and stuff like that, but there's touches in there that are genuinely just like how I remember them. And I feel like that makes it feel more real.

DINGMAN: The fact that it's filtered through your memory.

HAMMOND: Yeah. It's like a lived experience but made to be small.

Paige Hammond

DINGMAN: Yeah. Well, is there a feeling that goes along with picturing something like the Scholastic Book Fair that you're trying to channel?

HAMMOND: For sure, I think so many people when they get to a certain age, you get really nostalgic about your childhood. And there's almost kind of like a sadness to it, but I've gotten comments before of people being like, would you ever put like, you know, statues or figures or people inside of the rooms?

And I don't think I ever would because that's kind of like symbolic to me that it's still there but there's nothing in there, if that makes sense. It's like the memory has been left behind.

DINGMAN: You mentioned being nostalgic for childhood. Do you mind if I ask how old you are?

HAMMOND: Yeah, I'm 23.

DINGMAN: You're 23. Do you feel nostalgic for childhood?

HAMMOND: For sure, for sure. I was the kind of kid who would cry and break down at like 6 because I wasn't a baby anymore. Like I've always just had, I guess anxiety and stuff like that about just like getting older.

And I think it's funny now because I'm a grown adult, and I basically play with toys for a living, and I get to like just be creative, but yeah, I think it's interesting how everyone has a different perception of childhood and you know, sometimes it's good and sometimes it's bad, but there is like almost a homesickness for that time for me.

DINGMAN: What do you associate with that time?

HAMMOND: I think I just associate like, you know, school, elementary school, I associate like life pre-technology, I think is a big one for me. I definitely get homesick for a time that I didn't live in because we're so inundated with our phones and stuff these days.

DINGMAN: So you were born in what, 2002?

HAMMOND: Mm-hmm.

DINGMAN: Yeah, so you didn't really know a time before a lot of this stuff.

HAMMOND: And I kind of wish that I didn't grow up with that. Obviously, that's kind of silly to say considering I do social media and stuff like that. But I think a lot of people my age would agree that maybe maybe the phones did a little too much.

DINGMAN: What do you imagine that time was like?

HAMMOND: I think it was just a lot more people were a lot more present. There was more human connection. I guess, yeah, just people being in the present moment. And maybe I romanticized that time because I didn't live in it, but.

DINGMAN: Yeah, that's fascinating. I mean, as somebody who was alive at that time, I haven't thought about this before this conversation, but I guess I could look back and say like, yeah, maybe you were more present, but I also was too young to appreciate the importance of being present. If that makes sense. 

HAMMOND: That makes total sense.

DINGMAN: So maybe it's like I didn't know how good I had it.

What do you think is good about the idea of being present?

HAMMOND: I just think we're so connected these days, you really can't be alone, but somehow there's still kind of a lack of like human connection in real life.

Like personally, I do my work at home, and I graduated high school COVID year, and so I went into college during that whole time of just on switching to online school and stuff. And somehow you can be connected to so many people and still feel very alone.

DINGMAN: Yeah. Well, ironically, as you were pointing out, you are very active on social media. You have hundreds of thousands of followers on TikTok and Instagram.

I also understand that as a working artist, you have to find a way to get your work out there, and those are the tools that we use to do that. What do you hear from people who interact with the videos that you post?

HAMMOND: It's always cool to see other people around my age connect with especially the nostalgia stuff and being like, "That looks just like my room," or, "That looks exactly like my elementary school's PE closet."

It is cool though just to see that what I'm making can make people feel a certain way. I think that's the coolest thing.

DINGMAN: And that way is you feel like they're kind of tapping into that longing you're feeling?

HAMMOND: Yeah, yeah, and they feel that nostalgia and maybe the happiness and the sadness of it, you know, all the emotions. I just want people to like feel something from it, you know?

DINGMAN: Do you show the miniatures anywhere publicly?

HAMMOND: I actually don't. As of now, they kind of just sit in my room, which I hope someday that I can maybe put them on display somewhere or do something cool with them.

DINGMAN: So that's so interesting to me that there's a way that you're interacting with them, which is so tactile and so specific, and then there's the way that your fans interact with them, where there's this divide.

HAMMOND: Yeah, it's interesting how on social media and stuff, I can manipulate it to look a certain way. Like, I can zoom it in and zoom it out.

DINGMAN: Can I ask you, it also strikes me that there's a big difference craft-wise in making the miniatures themselves and then thinking about the aesthetic of your videos because another thing I think is interesting about the videos is for the most part you're not in them, right? And there's a lot of like kind of heavy shadows framing the objects.

How did you come up with that aesthetic?

HAMMOND: It's so hard to explain, but I think especially with the lighting, my goal is to try and dramatize it as much as I can. I actually like the lighting that goes inside of those rooms.

I kind of figured out a way to, once I flip off all those lights and it's just the light that's on inside of the miniature, it does look like nothing else exists around it, which is really cool. It's a cool effect.