By Kath Dolan
45 Main Street, Monbulk
Rachael Harland makes terrariums in antique glass featuring minute, highly detailed figures and some very funny, surreal scenes.Credit: Eddie Jim
Anyone who grew up watching I Dream of Jeannie and yearned to shrink and shimmy down into the curvaceous interior of Jeannie’s bottle will understand the fascination of Rachael Harland’s dryly humorous Little Lands.
Down the rabbit hole: Rachael's terrariums feature surreal scenes.Credit: Eddie Jim
Harland creates lush terrariums using antique glassware, from old honey pots to wine bottles, test tubes and even pendants. Each one is painstakingly constructed using hardy plants, stones, sand and mosses Harland is licensed to collect from the roadside near her Dandenong Ranges home, and populated by an assortment of humans and animals.
The delightfully detailed figures are so surreal in their arrangements and so tiny (half the size of a thumbnail in most cases) that viewers are forced to bend very close to see what’s happening beneath the foliage. There might be a strong man lifting weights atop an elephant’s back, or fishermen casting lines into unseen waves. Hikers on rocks stare back through minute binoculars. Clowns chase stags, an elderly couple snuggles on a park bench, and a gentleman holds his coat around a lady slipping into bikini bottoms (or is she slipping out of them?).
Harland says the look of wonder on people’s faces when they figure out what’s going on in each scene is the best part of her job, which began at craft markets, expanded into pop-up stores and recently spawned a shopfront in Monbulk. ‘‘Just seeing the joy that they receive has been really encouraging to me,’’ she says.
Harland grew up sewing, knitting and gardening with her grandma. But after a childhood full of challenges she married young and focused her energies on her family. Nine years ago, after the birth of her third child (the couple have since fostered a fourth), Harland rediscovered her creativity while decorating their Tyabb home on the cheap. Inspired by her grandma’s gift of a sewing machine, she began making kids’ clothes from vintage fabric and selling them at Tyabb’s Vintage Shed. ‘‘I was in a bit of a post-natal depression bubble and just didn’t even know how popular vintage clothing was,’’ she recalls with a laugh.
Glass pup: Viewers have to look closely to see what's going on.Credit: Eddie Jim
With two sons on the autism spectrum, the family moved to the Dandenongs to be near a school that could accommodate all their children. It was at a local op shop that Harland discovered a 1973 book on terrariums. For a woman with a loving but sometimes stressful family life, the lengthy, whimsical process is soothing and meditative. ‘‘Your brain floats to another place,’’ she says.