Works of art in the eye of a needle
English sculptor Willard Wigan has learnt to slow his heartbeat to create his microscopic works. RACHEL LOI reports
Add BT as a preferred sourceWILLARD Wigan faces an unusual occupational hazard when creating his signature microsculptures - if he isn't careful, he might inhale one of them.
It happened once before, says the 56-year-old artist from Birmingham with a laugh. He was working on a microscopic version of the Mad Hatter's Tea Party, he explains, when his phone rang. "You know, when you're so deep in concentration and your phone goes off, the first thing you do is sigh. So I sighed. And I saw Alice go up my nose, and she was gone."
Like most of the other works that Wigan is known for, the Mad Hatter's Tea Party piece is a microsculpture that sits in the eye of a sewing needle. The characters cannot be seen with the naked eye, so microscopes are always required to view his works.
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