"Some folks collect snowdomes because they're not as flat as stamps" (Ian Gordon, collector, Sydney)
"It's a trip-in-miniature to a land which many of us may never otherwise visit but which we long to see. And in some small way, we have" (Nancy McMichael, author, 'Snowdomes', and collector of over 5,000 snowdomes, Washington)
When a novice collector, such as myself, enters the snowily seductive world of the plastic snowdome, it isn't long before you find yourself wondering where they come from. What is their history and what happens next? Why do otherwise normal people become obsessed with them? Although it appears harder today to find the ordinary 'tourist-blue' snowdome in many locations, serious collectors of snowdomes are not alone in their fascination. The epitome of popular kitsch, the snowdome has become the object of academic interest as cultural icon.
When National Centre for Australian Studies curator Annette Shiell was working on the landmark Powerhouse Museum exhibition The Lie of the Land, there were those who ridiculed her idea that the humble snowdome should be included in the exhibition. Although The Lie of the Land deals with the use and abuse of Australian landscape imagery in ephemera from stamps to tea-towels to travel posters, it was feared that snowdomes would trivialise the exhibition. So instantly appealing are these tiny kitsch treasures, however, that images of snowdomes painstakingly shot by Powerhouse Museum photographers are used in the exhibition poster and catalogue cover.
More than two years after its debut in 1992, The Lie of the Land is still touring rural Australia. The snowdomes displayed and discussed by Annette Shiell in the accompanying catalogue so intrigued Penny Amberg, staff member at the Australian Embassy in Washington, that she co-ordinated an exhibition of Australian snowdomes in the American capital. This was called, of course, Snowed Under.
These and other events suggest that fascination with the dome is snowballing. Nancy McMichael reports in her definitive book, Snowdomes, that the popularity of snowdomes increased throughout the 1980s by leaps and bounds: 'American and European producers report an enormous growth in sales, including several claims of more than 1000% in a four-year period. Flea market dealers ... report a growing number of serious, competitive collectors.'
Snowdomes, snowstorms, snowscenes, snowshakers, blizzards, waterglobes, call them what you will, these little worlds - sealed in glass or plastic with their painted figures beset by Lilliputian blizzards at every turn - cast their enchantment on young and old, rich and poor, trendoid and nerd, tourist and collector alike.
Snowdome collecting is big business worldwide and there are a number of factories meeting the demand: in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Italy, Australia and Germany.
The drift of the Australian snowscene has many eddies. Australian academics such as Annette Shiell are collectors, as are lawyers at the Perth law firm Parker & Parker. Other Australian collectors range from archaeologists to investment bankers, laboratory assistants to artists. Wayne Golding, art co-ordinator of the hip clothing company Mambo, has over 500 snowdomes in his collection. he sums up the appeal of the snowdome for him by saying, 'I love snowdomes because they're democratic, mass art.'
West Australian artist Leon Pericles has even commissioned his own snowdome from a factory in China. It features his mythic outback town Widjimorphup and is a glorious example of the mix of creativity and crassness which gives snowdomes so much of their charm. Australian snowdome collectors therefore have the distinction of collecting perhaps the only tourist snowdome in the world for a town that doesn't exist!
Pericles took great pains with the artwork for his dome which boasts the four panels of the truly fascinating dome. He was perturbed when the completed domes arrived boasting homestead roofs painted a pretty pale pink instead of the traditional Australian red. This did not please Pericles, but it is just such slips between concept and execution (each snowdome interior is hand-painted) which lure many collectors, who are always on the lookout for mistakes. Errors such as upside-down figurines, misspelt name plaques and incongruous elements (such as the suspiciously Japanese-looking flag fluttering behind Parliament House in the first domes produced of that building) make such domes highly desirable.
The snowdome has a fascinating and chequered history. Originally invented by the French, the world's first souvenir snowdome was made for the 1889 Paris Exhibition and featured (you guessed it!) a small ceramic Eiffel Tower. The familiar oval plastic dome with blue background and flat bottom was invented by German manufacturers using the new plastics in the 1950s. One maker later claimed the design was inspired by the view of a snowy landscape through the back window of his Volkswagen. So successful was this shape that a bitter legal battle ensued between the two German manufacturers over the right to use it, with one company finally winning the exclusive right, in Germany, to do so. German snowdomes are still considered by collectors to be the most finely crafted in the world.
In the 1960s Asia captured a large market share of snowdomes which was briefly threatened when a storm blew up over Hong Kong domes. They were temporarily banned from the United States when it was discovered they were being filled with water directly from polluted Hong Kong harbour.
Unfortunately, the cost of making detailed, site-specific snowdomes has increased to the point where it seems that there are many tourist attractions that don't bother with their own individual snowdome any more. Jenolan Caves used to have a charming snowdome, but that was long ago. The incongruity of snow in many Australian locations is surpassed by the absurdity of snow falling inside the great cave at the entrance to Jenolan. [Actually, Jenolan has a terrific dome which you can see by clicking here - Lisa]
There are many towns along the Australian coastline that make do with a generic snowdome featuring a couple on a surfboard/seesaw. This standardisation will lead to the death of snowdomes if it isn't stopped. No collector is content to buy the same snowdome over and over from different towns. Some Australian towns retain highly individual snowdomes, such as Nambucca Heads, which has a beautiful snowdome featuring local landmark "The Wall". The panels are painted in cool blues and greens and enveloped in a thick fall of silver glitter.
While we immediately think of tourist souvenirs when we think of the snowdome, in its heyday there was a brilliant variety of uses made of it. One of the rarest and most intriguing uses of snowdomes was for advertising. In Snowdomes, Nancy McMichael shows us pictures of extraordinary domes advertising everything from artificial snowmakers to pest control to (the mind reels) Nautilus Submarines!
Snowdomes were used as trophies and awards and even, by the Rhode Island School of Design, as diplomas. Snowdomes were turned into salt and pepper shakers, sugar shakers, pen holders, desk calendars, pencil sharpeners and soap dishes. The innovative Germans led the way again in the 1980s with a political snowdomes depicting the dirty air of Berlin. This was meant to illustrate dramatically the ecological platform of the then West German Green Party.
The snowdome could have a shining future as a far more interesting corporate souvenir than pens and stationery and as a much more treasured political statement than any leaflet. All advertisers, public relations experts and political propagandists should take note. There are not many relatively cheap, mass-produced objects that people can be inspired to keep.
As snowdomes resemble little icons, it shouldn't surprise us that they have in fact been used in just this way. The centre of production for religious snowdomes is, of course, Italy, where they have often been produced with the globe and stand glued onto little platforms strewn with shells. There are the expected snowdomes of cathedrals and also charming, watery dioramas of biblical scenes, with Moses parting the Red Sea to Noah's Ark, Daniel in the lion's den and Jonah comfortably ensconced within a spouting whale.
Rather more startling are the snowdomes featuring the Crucifixion, the Pieta and the Resurrection, especially as the latter excellent dome glows crimson with the aid of batteries. Such domes are sometimes used as household shrines.
Why does the snowdome inspire passionate feelings from devotion to distaste? The children of Generation X, unconstrained by the parents' hatred of fifties and sixties kitsch, celebrate the snowdome as a self-contained paradise of consumer artificiality. The snowdome is anti-authentic. In an age of mass tourism, the snowdome celebrates the pre-packaged experience that is all most can afford. It reassures the tourist anxious about whether he or she really experienced a place by encapsulating the icons unique to that place. It may not be an original vision of a site, but who cares? Another reason for hating or loving snowdomes is that they are a remainder of childhood - often a time about which we have mixed feelings.
Snowdomes are appealing partly because they are utterly impenetrable. An essential part of their appeal is this: while they may be smugly self-contained, we, as gods to these little worlds within plastic, are able to send stormy weather whenever we wish. Our frustrated desire to enter these little fantasy worlds is partly fulfilled by being able to shake up a storm inside them.
While the blue-water wonderland of the snowdome, oddly beautiful and hilariously kitsch, will always retain its essential mystery, collectors and tourists and academics will still try to explain the appeal of the multitude of microcosmic universes that sit side by side on our mantelpieces.
Claire Corbett
With thanks to Annette Shiel, Ann Stephen, Dallas Cox, The Powerhouse Museum and Wayne Golding.
Ayers Rock (collection Jacky Talbot). Three Sisters, Katoomba (collection, Wayne Golding). Hervey Bay QLD (collection Tracey Naughton).
