N.S. artist makes unique shadow box art using things lying around her home

New Minas, N.S. artist Robin Hindle creates one-of-a-kind shadow box art.

Robin Hindle, an artist from New Minas, N.S., makes unique artwork with shadow boxes.

She builds the boxes from scratch using wood and then finds things lying around her home to create a setting.

“When I go to a craft show I’m pretty much the only one with that type of art,” says Hindle.

She’s done needlework, pottery, drawing, painting and, for over a decade, the shadow box art.

Hindle says one frame in particular sparked her creativity.

“I had a frame once a long time ago and it had like a little bookshelf in the frame and I thought this would be a really fun thing to put into a box, so I started with a teacup when I started to do this art,” she says.

Some shadow boxes take weeks to make, while others take months. It depends on the size, style and design.

“I use mainly polymer clay to build the characters and tables and Christmas tree and that type of thing, and then I also use other things that I have around the room in my office. I use a cork for a table base for instance or wood or little pieces of leather, so the chair has leather on it,” adds Hindle.

Hindle is 70 years old and dabbles in all types of art. She has been creative since she was a child.

Shadow box art was something she started in Victoria, B.C., and once she moved to Nova Scotia in 2014 she started creating different settings.

One box is quite large, coming in at 20 inches wide and about nine inches tall.

“It’s a little fair home, it’s got a table and a tablecloth, a bird looking in the window and dishes. I loved them so much that I wanted to keep doing them,” says Hindle.

And so, she did. And her collection became too big to store at her house, so she decided to start selling them at local craft markets and at a store in Windsor called Scotia Handmade Treasures.

“There is the Christmas one, the cupcakes. I have another one called Tea with Alice, which is a teacup and lots of sparkles and stuff. I also have one that is called Queenie, which is a cat sitting on a stool and there is a dresser beside it with underwear hanging out,” Hindle says.

The artist is also an illustrator and author and has completed three books.

The series is about fairies called “Famlaer” and can be found on Amazon.

“It actually took me six years to draw the pictures for the first book because it’s got a lot of illustrations in it. The other two books don’t have quite as many illustrations … I have just always been a fan of fairies, and I thought I would bring in a unique fairy story and it’s one you would probably never see anywhere else,” says Hindle.

It’s quite the process. Hindle draws her own characters and buildings and then scans them into her computer and uses Photoshop to add colour. She is currently working on the illustrations for her fourth book and hopes to have it done by next spring.

“I just like being creative. I like working with my hands and I figure writing keeps my brain working,” adds Hindle.

She says being creative and creating art is something she hopes to do forever, and she still gets excited when someone loves her work as much as she does.

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