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Microscopic Art
June 20, 2007 2:27 PM
London-based correspondent Nick Watt blogs about interviewing its creator:
Driving to meet Willard Wigan I was expecting a timid fellow with a strange obsession. I thought our story would be about the art not the man. I was wrong. It’s difficult to capture Wigan’s art on television and it’s difficult to capture him. He’s confident, engaging and eloquent. Then he explains he can’t read or write and that he was driven to micro art when, as a lonely five-year-old, he would bunk off school and watch ants in the grass. I guess spending hours and years of your life hunched over a tiny sculpture in a semi-trance does something to your inner equilibrium. (At left, Wigan's "The Wizard of Oz" from his website.)
And the art: The first thing Wigan showed me was an eyelash that he held up to the light. I could make out what looked like a speck of dirt on one end. Under the microscope, Charlie Chaplin complete with cane, hat and mustache. Wigan doesn’t just make tiny sculptures. He actually makes those sculptures look like real people. “If someone says, oh look, a pirate. Then what’s great about that?” he told me with a shrug. “But if they say, ‘wow, that’s Johnny Depp…”
The other thing I can’t get my head around is that he really doesn’t enjoy doing the work. He has to force himself to work. His only satisfaction is finishing a piece then having chumps like us stare in wide-eyed disbelief at what’s he’s created.
June 20, 2007 | Permalink | Share | User Comments (7)
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I LOVED this story! Thank you for sharing it.
Posted by: Lara McKnight | Jun 20, 2007 7:16:51 PM
Mr. Wigan is sculpting his art for all of us who were made to feel "small" or made to feel like "nothing" growing up. He's simply echoing what the Universe says and that is that each of us, every one of us, is not only SOMEthing, but a HUGE SOMETHING, a work of brilliant art, a holy sculpture, a blessed human being. Thank you Willard Wigan, and God Bless You!
Posted by: Patricia | Jun 20, 2007 7:23:31 PM
How amazing, wish I had seen the show - thanks for sharing.
Posted by: Sandy | Jun 20, 2007 7:56:00 PM
Mr. Wigan is truly an artist and does some fabulous work.He is outstanding and very talented. Those of us who dabble in the scale miniature world really appreciate the work that he is doing. It is amazing how mental abuse has a child has created his amazing art.
Posted by: Mary | Jun 20, 2007 11:37:38 PM
Patricia has articulated with eloquent poignancy why Willard Wigan's micro art is significant.
Posted by: Candadai Tirumalai | Jun 21, 2007 9:34:05 AM
Once again the human spirit triumphs over the stuffy pomposity of being politically correct, having the right religion, the proper social class, etc.
I should something good comes from this and not further paranoia as with the atom splitting last century.
Posted by: bobby hunt | Jun 22, 2007 4:43:37 PM
saw the exhibition in Nottingham UK. Fantastic. I' want to see them again. When I looked at Charlie Chaplin on an eyelash, there was nothing there!!! amazing man
Posted by: sue d | Apr 30, 2008 1:25:10 PM
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