All artwork is vulnerable to certain threats: sunlight, moisture, improper handling, or neglect, to name a few. The world’s smallest sculptures can fall victim to something else entirely. “I was working on a piece featuring Alice in Wonderland, and I accidentally inhaled Alice,” artist Willard Wiggins says.
Wiggins is a micro sculptor; his work fits in needle eyes, pin heads, even eyelashes. A few years back, when he was placing the titular girl into a sculpture of the Mad Hatter’s tea party, he took in a breath, and suddenly Alice was gone. “It worked out in the end, because I made another Alice that was better,” he says.
Wiggins has been making mini items since he was just five years old. “I had a hard time in school because I had autism, and it wasn’t diagnosed in the ’60s,” he explains. Unsupportive teachers made him feel less than, and he ended up spending a lot of time away from classes in his family’s garden. One day, his dog was digging near the fence line to reach a ball, and a swarm of ants started pouring out of the earth. “And I started making houses and little tables and chairs for ants,” he says. “I didn’t think it was anything special until one of the other kids in the neighborhood looked over the fence and told me how amazing it was. It was like being in a shower, hearing it washed away everything that was said by the school teachers.”
From then on, he continued making miniature sculptures, overtime learning how to achieve smaller and smaller results. While his original ant houses were made from cardboard and wood, today he uses a number of materials to craft his projects, everything from small pieces of gold, zip ties, and even sand grains. “Anything that I can carve works,” he explains. Below, AD speaks with Wiggins about his process, notable projects, and the endless beauty to be found in the world’s smallest things.