Nick Obourn is a Brooklyn-based writer and editor. His work can be read on the Huffington Post and in Tin House, Art in America, Art & Antiques, San Francisco Magazine, and Willamette Week. He also writes The Culture Spoke, a blog about arts and culture on True/Slant.
When we were young, many of us built shoebox dioramas depicting scenes from a book, or an historical event. Artist Thomas Doyle did too, but whereas most of us abandoned…