THEIR glue guns were cocked, their scissors sharpened, their beer glasses full. So began the third installment of Diorama Lodge, an occasional event held in the dingy back room of Freddy's Bar in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn. Two dozen men and women in their 20's and 30's had come armed with empty cardboard boxes, ready to use them to create miniature scenes that would be their entries in the competition for the title of best diorama.

Emily Helfgot, Jesse Levin and Janah Boccio, longtime friends in their 30's who had known one another "since the actual age of diorama time," as Ms. Helfgot put it, worked thoughtfully on their diorama. Ms. Helfgot, who works at Columbia University Teachers College, added: "Something important to consider in diorama-making is, do you dive right in with an idea? Or do you let the material lead you to a notion, like Michelangelo feeling the stone?"

The winning diorama was a sober depiction of three-inch-tall oil wells spewing pipe cleaners inside a sneaker box. The teammates said that they were all avid bicyclists who wanted to represent the serious side of the origin of horsepower.

This article, written by Jennifer Bleyer, appeared in the July 2nd, 2006 publication of The New York Times.

Published Monday, Jul. 3, 2006