REVIEW ED
Willard Wigan:
Art in the
Eye of a Needle
Parish Gallery
Washington,
DC
Nov. 14,2009 -Jan. 23, 2010
An entire train of camels fits into the eye
of a needle in British micro-sculptor Willard
Wigan’s world. His work is so small that
each piece is installed in its own enclosed
mount, with high-intensity two-point light-
ing and a binocular microscope built in. If
you look at the needle without magnifica-
tion, you may not be able to tell there is any-
thing in its eye. But look through the micro-
scope and iconic forms and figures appear,
many of them from pop culture.
Although it is interesting to see what
images Wigan chooses—Nefertiti, Tinker-
bell, Puff Daddy and Homer Simpson—the
greater interest lies in the marvel of their
existence, in three dimensions, at this tiny
size. The artist (b. 1957) began making very
small things, such as houses and clothes for
ants, when he was five years old, and has
taken his pieces orders of magnitude smaller
in the subsequent decades. Entirely self-
taught, he now works in materials from
plastic to gold under very high magnifica-
tion. With microscopic tools of his own
making, he carves and paints to create fig-
ures that fit easily on the head of a pin or
in a needle’s eye. He must take the focused
concentration of the craftsperson to ex-
tremes: at this scale, the pulse in the finger-
tips acts like a jackhammer.
One of the most successful pieces con-
ceptually is
Barack Obama and Family,
de-
picting the victorious appearance of the
President, the first lady and their daughters
on election night 2008. Here the four linked
figures form a vivid hieroglyphic in the shal-
low needle’s eye space. The raised outside
arms of the two adult end figures give a vic-
tory salute, while inverted
Fs
are formed by
the sturdy legs of all four. Mounted on the
outer rim of the eye, spread as in a high
wind, flies the American flag, immediately
recalling the first moon landing with its
U.S.
flag and “giant step for mankind.”
Not all the work is so serious. Wigan
also expresses the sheer delight of this
nano-world: Charlie Chaplin frolics on the
tip of a single black eyelash.
By Kate Dobbs Ariail, who writes on the arts
from Durham
, N C ,
and Washington,
D C .
+
The exhibition ends a
U.S.
tour at the At-
lanta Art Gallery, Atlanta, Jan. 29 - Mar. 27.
Below:
Willard Wigan
9
C a m els,
2009,
nylon, hair, largest 9
microns.
Right:
Jeflflrwin
B u ck ,
2009, earthen-
ware, glaze, 29 x 24 x
18 in.
Opposite Left:
Jefflrwin
R o g er,
2003, earthen-
ware, glaze, 30 x 12 x
15 in.
Jeff Irwin:
Nature
as Trophy
Earl & Birdie Taylor/Pacific Beach
Branch Library
San Diego,
CA
Sept. 13 - Nov. 22, 2009
Denaturing
carries a connotation of loss, the
removal or compromise of something essen-
tial. Strictly defined, however,
to denature
means to change the properties of a thing,
and that process might be transformative
in a positive way. Jeff Irwin’s compelling
ceramic sculptures of the past several years
engage both aspects of such change—the
tragic and the catalytic, the sacrificial and
the spectacular.
Most of the work in this memorable
show took the form of wall-mounted animal
heads, akin to the taxidermied trophies of
a successful hunt. Irwin sculpts the figures
(antelope, elephant, cougar and more) to
look as if they were made of tree branches,
with knobby knots for eyes and sawed-off
twigs for mouths and ears. Glazed an all-
over milky white, the pieces have a formi-
dable, ghostly presence, the clay magnifi-
cently denatured to resemble not just wood
036 american craft feb/mario
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