These Dioramas Are To Die For
"And I thought, 'Oh, if I could get these little people, I could make something like that. And if I made something really creepy, I could get a rise out of my husband,' " she says.
Her husband liked it so much, he put a photo of it on Reddit. Within a week, Goldman says the photo got 6 million hits. Next came requests from friends and strangers. The dioramas became a hobby.
Now, Las Vegas gallery owner Marty Walsh represents Goldman's work. The 4-inch cubes sell for $100. Larger dioramas cost more. And there's always a waiting list, Walsh says.
Brooklyn, N.Y., restaurant owner Chance Johnston walked into the gallery while visiting Las Vegas. Now he has three of Goldman's works in his loft. He doesn't consider himself a morbid person — he just finds the dioramas fascinating, and says he loves watching his friends' reactions to them.
"They really do make me happy," he says. "And everybody that sees them, it is a sort of a love 'em or hate 'em reaction."
Goldman gets request for commissions. But she usually declines. She likes to do what she wants.
"I can't make someone's mother-in-law, despite the request," she says. "I can't recreate some, like, miserable scene from your high school days that you wanted to go a different way."
Goldman admits her dioramas can be seen as comments on society's fetish for violence. But she says most people react to the tiny fake blood and body parts with laughter. Even if it's nervous laughter.