Little Dudes

About 5 years ago, I went with my niece to Venice. We did the usual stuff - walked a lot, ate a lot, rode in a gondola, got lost, made jokes about Venetian blinds, and shopped.

On the day we made the requisite trip to Murano, we cleverly arrived just at midday, when the workshops were shutting down for lunch. So we had lunch ourselves then wandered about waiting for things to pick up, and we came across the showroom of Cesare Toffolo.



This guy does the most amazing work! He creates some traditional glassware - bowls and goblets decorated at a level of fine detail beyond anything I'd ever seen - it's like glassware on very delicate amphetamines.



He also creates still lifes and objets with little dudes in them. Little anonymous dudes hanging out, working, climbing, running, falling, helping, watching. They are the most expressive little dudes, and they are everywhere: inside a glass balloon (!!), hanging out with the fruit...



...squeeeeezing through an hourglass, or up in ur scaffolding decoratin ur vases.



These pieces are, naturally, expensive. After about an hour in the store, and driving my niece to distraction with my indecision, I managed to choose two traditional goblets (see above). The little dudes had to stay behind. Not even one little dude to come with us? Sadly, no.

When we finally left, in a nearby window we saw some miniature chandeliers. Now, yer average Murano chandelier is quite large, but yer average North American home does not have the 20-foot ceilings necessary to accommodate such glory. Not to mention, how do you get the bugger home once you've bought it? So miniature chandeliers seemed very sensible to us.



And sometime around this moment, inspiration struck: we needed to move to Venice, and open a shop. We would sell very specific, niche products:

1. Little dudes. Just the dudes, doing the stuff they do, standing/sitting/climbing in their interesting way, but separate from the remainder of the sculpture. Buy one, buy several - put little dudes in your bookcase, in your car, in your fruit bowl. Brilliant!
2. Miniature chandeliers. And not just apartment-sized, not just girly-bedroom-sized, but Christmas-tree-ornament-sized. Surely if the glass-makers can make life-sized sugar ants (and they can), they can make teeny, ornate chandeliers. They could even have little dudes in them! We would corner the market.
   
3. Gelato. Okay, not a niche product in Venice, as it seems as though you are never more than 20 feet from a gelato - but in-store gelato was key to keeping the niece actually in-store, rather than sneaking out to the nearest gelato stand every 20 minutes or so, and possibly running off with Paulo the gelato guy.
   

I think there was a 4th product - possibly something to do with fans, as I'm a fan of fans. Miniature fans, probably. With little dudes.

I'd forgotten about the little dudes, until a recent post on Luxist reminded me. And then I read A Thousand Days in Venice, and really wanted to go back. I think there were some things I didn't buy last time.

Images 1 and 5 from Mostly Glass, 6 from Cesare Toffolo, others my own.