Big things come in tiny packages: How Belgian Artist is giving life to outdated Belgian boot-scrapers

A miniature scene of people standing on top of a globe is set into a boot scraper outside a front door in Antwerp. (Photo | AP)

Lemmens will use the grant to install at least 50 miniature scenes in the old niches outside homes that families once used to clean off their shoes. A wooden cigar box holding miniature figures in the atelier of Belgian artist Elke Lemmens, prior to being installed into a boot scraper. (Photo | AP)

Belgian artist Elke Lemmens holds a miniature of a girl on a horse as she installs a scene. (Photo | AP)

Elke Lemmens works in her atelier prior to installing miniature scenes into boot scrapers in Antwerp. (Photo | AP)

A miniature scene of a girl on a horse at the seaside is set into a boot scraper. (Photo | AP)

One boot-scraper depicts the prison cell of Belgian writer Roger van de Velde, who was held in a psychiatric prison because of a painkiller addiction. (Photo | AP)

Belgian artist Elke Lemmens shows a miniature scene of the cell of Belgian writer Roger van de Velde . (Photo | AP)

Belgian artist Elke Lemmens lays on the sidewalk as she installs a miniature scene into a boot scraper. (Photo | AP)

These dusty architectural remnants of an age when muddy roads and the absence of sidewalks made rubbing one's footwear over metal a prerequisite for going indoors blend into cityscapes from Europe to the United States, failing to attract notice since doormats replaced them. (Photo | AP)

Stef Pottums sits on his step next to a miniature scene of the cell of Belgian writer Roger van de Velde in a boot scraper in Antwerp, Belgium. (Photo | AP)