avatars?

for his children to play with, he carved 3,500 individual pieces from scrap wood and hand painted them in his spare time over 40 years. that's the Kirk Bros Circus by Edward Kirk. this includes the animals, the aerialists, the pop-corn vendors, wagons, tent poles, and the audience, and more, each individual...and the arms are attached, not clothes-pin style! the Shelburne Museum has this on display - it's huge!

 the museum also has the most amazing collection of over 500 old circus posters, too!

and if that's not enough, it has Roy Arnold's miniature carved circus parade, scaled 1' = 1 foot, and it is 525 feet in length. Shelburne Museum has a special building dedicated to it so that you walk through a curved narrow building unable to see ahead too far, as if the circus were coming along past you. there are 400 horses, each individually carved. and very ornate wagons for each performer or animal! one wagon, based on a real one, has 40 horses pulling it. the real one had reins that weighed 72 lbs!
 
i wish i could find an online in-color picture of a particularly ornate colorful poster with a great deal of captions using all the literary devices known to circus, (hyperbole, aliteration, testimonials) to entice the customer -- it's Minting the Marvel who rode his unicycle up and down a steep high spiral in the Adam Forepaugh and Sells Bros circus...the MOST HAZARDOUS JOURNEY EVER TAKEN BY MAN! hah...he wasn't even knitting!