The world’s leading micro-sculptor has revealed his latest intriguing work: a minuscule bust of William Shakespeare.
British artist Willard Wigan MBE, who has autism, used a tiny piece of beard stubble as a brush, plus an eyelash sharpened to a fine tip to create his unbelievably delicate sculpture—”The Bard of Arvon: To See or Not to See.”
Intent on making the world’s smallest bust of the English playwright as a tribute to his genius, the artist collected a mixture of plaster, stone, and sand grains from the walls of Shakespeare’s home.
The piece of art, which took over sixteen weeks of painstaking effort to complete, is displayed inside a hollowed-out human hair, using tweezers made from splitting an eyelash in half. To put it into perspective, the entire microscopic sculpture is smaller than a full stop printed in a newspaper.
The artist used a piece of greybeard stubble instead of black for “added contrast” and brought the literary giant’s “likeness to life with a precision that defies comprehension.”
Mr. Wigan, whose work has reportedly been collected by luminaries like the Queen of England and the legendary musician Elton John, got inspiration for the project during a visit to Stratford-upon-Avon, William Shakespeare’s birthplace.
“I believe Shakespeare is the greatest writer the world has ever known, and I wanted to honor him in the best way I can,” Mr. Wigan said in the press release.
In order to achieve color, the sculptor was limited to adding only “minuscule microdots of paint.” Since the particles tend to clump together, Mr. Wigan had to meticulously rub them on a glass surface to crush the pigments, before deploying his novel sharpened eyelash application technique.
After prolonged weeks of intense focus, concentration, and stillness, which tested his many years of experience and skills as a micro-artist, Dr. Wigan’s latest masterpiece was finally ready.
Before spending long hours meticulously carving and painting each teeny-tiny, fragile component, Mr. Wigan spends time meditating. This process helps him slow down his heart rate, reducing hand tremors, gusts of air, and distractions. In a 2023 interview with The Epoch Times, he remarked:
“You have to slow your breathing down. You have to work between the center point of the heartbeat—it’s like trying to put a pin in a bubble without bursting the bubble. … Doing this work, it’s quite painstaking because there’s no pleasure in doing it. There’s only pleasure when you finish it and the pleasure when other people see it. It has a dynamic effect on people because they can’t believe that they’re so small.”
Mr. Wigan, who is in his mid-60s, experienced extreme difficulties growing up in Birmingham. He belonged to a loving, hardworking Jamaican family, but schoolteachers couldn’t recognize his autism and dyslexia, and he wasn’t properly diagnosed until age 50. As a result, the young boy withdrew into his imagination and, helped by his mother, began exploring his innate artistic talent.
“Autism isn’t a death sentence,” Mr. Wigan told The Epoch Times. “If you have kids with autism, encourage them because once you tell somebody that they’re good at what they do, it inspires them.”
The artist has created all sorts of molecular-level sculptures inside the eyes of needles including a procession of 14 camels, the Last Supper, the Three Kings, a Robin Hood, a tiger watching over her cub, Queen Elizabeth II, and many others.
Check out some of his selected artwork below:
The Last Supper. (Courtesy of Paul Ward Photography via Willard Wigan)
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