You see them on houses all over Belgium. Small stone niches with rounded tops next to the front door. Sometimes there is an iron bar at the bottom. Sometimes it has been removed.
They were originally used as boot scrapers. But now no one really notices them.
No one, except the Antwerp artist Elke Lemmens. She has created 45 miniature scenes in the miniature boot-scraper niches attached to Antwerp town houses.
These tiny works are inspired by the stories of the people living in the houses. One scene shows five family members who live in different countries standing on a globe to mark the places where they live.
All 45 of Elke’s tiny works are mapped on her website hausgemacht.be
Derek Blyth’s hidden secret of the day: Derek Blyth is the author of the bestselling “The 500 Hidden Secrets of Belgium”. He picks out one of his favourite hidden secrets for The Brussels Times every day.
