Preston Poling knew the bland office scene he built for the miniature’s competition at the 2024 Kentucky State Fair might be inappropriate.
Sure, the sofa, desk, and chair could be used in any office in Louisville.
But to those in the know, it’s a depiction of a popular pornography set.
Poling’s simple yet explosive design of “The Casting Couch” was awarded a third-place ribbon for its craftsmanship in the “I Did it My Way” category but later was deemed inappropriate. The Kentucky State Fair hasn’t revoked his ribbon, but after the miniature went viral and drew an onslaught of attention, officials removed it from the display area at the Kentucky Exposition Center, 937 Phillips Lane.
Miniatures are very small, extremely detailed designs of scenes scaled down to something small enough to fit on top of a table. For this entry, Poling, who is known as “The Bearded Miniaturist,” crafted a simplistic office that lacked any visible hint of sexuality or offensiveness.
Kentucky State Fair officials released a statement saying “Entries submitted to the fair are routinely reviewed throughout the event and the entry in question has been removed from display at this time,” but did not provide any further comment.
Candidly, the fair’s decision didn’t surprise Poling at all, he told The Courier Journal during an interview. This was the second time he’d had a piece removed from the Kentucky State Fair, and he was actively testing its boundaries with entries based on his experience with the competition in 2023.
Here’s what happened.
Last year he submitted a miniature build of a risqué dungeon and it was disqualified before the judging process began.
“To be fair and completely transparent, that build was not subtle,” Poling said. “It was a sexy dungeon with chains, and there was a little tiny hit of blood around the drain, and there was a stain on the mattress.”
When fair officials deemed it inappropriate, he asked what he could remove from the build to make it fit for the fair. By this point, though, it didn’t matter how many chains or stains he removed. Knowing the intention behind the room, it wouldn’t qualify for the fair.
That got him thinking.
“What could I build that people would know is totally sexually related, but if you don’t know it, there is absolutely no way you would ever know what it is,” Poling said.
“The Casting Couch” was so mundane that it felt perfect to him.
”There’s no hint,” Poling said. “There’s no tips. There is nothing short of a little sweat on the middle cushion, which you really have to look for.”
While arguably controversial and offensive in some circles, Poling says he’s received tens of thousands of positive reactions and comments about “The Casting Couch.” That good-natured buzz is actually why he got into miniatures in the first place. He’s been fascinated by them since he was a child, but he never attempted to build one until the COVID-19 shutdown in 2020. He spent the pandemic creating a buildout of the apartment in the 1990 TV sitcom “Fraiser.”
“It seemed to bring people a lot of joy in the Facebook group in a time when they were trapped in the house,” he said.
That miniature later won a first-place ribbon at the Kentucky State Fair, and the hobby has since spun into a second career for him. Now he has a studio at the Mellwood Arts Center, and was named a finalist in the Canadian reality TV show “Best in Miniature.”
Overall, he’s grateful for his experience with “The Casting Couch” popularity and its third-place ribbon. He considers the award a gift because he knows that “The Casting Couch’s” set doesn’t have a lot of detail. The judge must have appreciated the meticulous craftsmanship of the hand-carved camera and the installation of the baseboards.
“People have had fun with it, that otherwise might have just walked past the entire exhibit,” he said.
And while “The Casting Couch” is gone from the Kentucky State Fair, he has a plan to display it at Ms. Audrey’s Crafting Emporium, 1703 Bardstown Road, at the end of September.
He also received two other awards at the 2024 Kentucky State Fair for miniatures of the popular children’s book “Goodnight Moon” and the hit television series “The Walking Dead.”
The removal of the piece hasn’t soured him on the fair at all.
“I’ve had boatloads of fun,” he said. “Tons of other people in this community are following this story and they’re having fun with it too. That’s the whole point. The whole point is for all of us to have fun.”
And assuming he can get past the entries table next time, you can expect to see his miniatures in the 2025 Kentucky State Fair, too.
Reach reporter Maggie Menderski at [email protected].
This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Kentucky artist goes viral with casting couch State Fair entry
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