Jill Orlov is a cave-diver of sorts.
“I go what I call ‘spelunking in junkyards,’” Orlov, a graduate of the University of Virginia’s School of Architecture, said. “I collect interesting things, just odds and ends.”
Those odds and ends make their way into Orlov’s miniature sculptures – often miniature recreations of indoor spaces like game rooms, libraries or an artist’s studio. Her work has appeared in exhibitions at venues including the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C., and the Museum of Miniatures in Tucson, Arizona.
Collected odds and ends fill Orlov’s workspace. She “spelunks” junkyards for materials she transforms into detailed miniature interiors. (Contributed photo)
Miniatures, she said, are what made her fall in love with architecture in the first place.
“My roommate knew someone in the Architecture School she wanted to introduce to our suitemate, so we went over, and she’s talking to him about our suitemate. I’m just in awe of the scale models that were out,” Orlov said. “It was just a whole other world.”
Orlov is a School of Architecture alumna who shifted from her early interest in law and medicine to architecture after discovering her passion during her first year at UVA. (Contributed photo)
She’d previously considered a career in law or medicine, but after a stint as a runner for the city solicitor in Wilmington, Delaware, and suffering through an introductory chemistry course, she knew she needed to look elsewhere for a major. She applied late during her first year to the Architecture School and was allowed to transfer in.
“I loved architecture school. That was my world,” Orlov said.
After graduating, she earned a master’s degree in architecture from the University of Pennsylvania. She went to work for small firms in Delaware, then a more “high design kind of firm” in Baltimore, where she now lives. She was working for a company that assesses the conditions of facilities before they are purchased, when a friend invited her to take a welding class at the Maryland Institute College of Art.
“I had never been so scared in my life. We had a very hands-off instructor, who would just talk to us about the welding basics, and explain these flammable gases, and I thought, ‘Oh my God, I could blow the building up,’” Orlov said.
No buildings were harmed, but the class has led to a career making miniatures of all sorts – including a miniature version of the Baltimore artist Michael Owen’s studio, made almost entirely from various metals.
Orlov received a commission to make bite-sized records for the Grammy-nominated music producer and musician Benny Blanco, perhaps better known as Selena Gomez’s husband.
“Benny Blanco’s creative directors reached out to me and said, ‘Can you make multiples of something, keeping things kind of secret?’” Orlov recalled. “I said, ‘I’m intrigued.’”
Orlov crafts custom miniature works, including books, for celebrity clients. (Contributed photo)
After Blanco commissioned her, the producer’s team sent images related to Blanco’s record album, “Friends Keep Secrets,” and she went to work. Commissioned during the pandemic, she sent 62 individual mini-framed-album awards, packaged in Altoids tins, to all the different songwriters, musicians and others involved in making the album.
“The project just grew and grew. I directly mailed one to Halsey, I directly mailed one to Ed Sheeran,” Orlov said. She used sterling silver and automotive paint to match Blanco’s favorite shade of pink.
Miniature furniture and dollhouse pieces reflect Orlov’s early fascination with small-scale design. (Contributed photos)
Another project, based on The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, invited currently incarcerated artists to collaborate on a sculptural version of one of the museum’s galleries. Orlov met the museum’s former executive director, who was enthusiastic about the idea.
“I read this book called ‘Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration,’ and it began with describing volunteers who went into prisons wanting to teach art. But so many of these incarcerated people were already incredibly talented, self-taught artists, and it was those that I wanted to connect with,” Orlov said.
She invited seven currently incarcerated men to reinterpret – in miniature – the original works of art to re-curate onto the gallery walls of Orlov’s sculptural recreation.
Orlov uses scale to bring her miniature creations to life, a technique she encountered as a UVA student. (Contributed photo)
“I use these symbols of privacy and possession because I’m working with men who have no privacy,” she said. She solders ornate frames for the miniature paintings out of vintage brass keys and also uses vintage mailbox doors – that look like cells – to house the letters exchanged with Orlov. These letters are accessed from the rear of the sculpture through hinged brass sheets, each resembling a letter and engraved with the “inside artists’” descriptions of their works in their own words and handwriting.
It may come as no surprise that Orlov loved dollhouses as a child. As a teenager growing up in Charlottesville, she frequented a dollhouse shop on the Downtown Mall.
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