An Extrodinary Artist Award!!

Mr. Wigan, a 52-year-old Briton, is dyslexic and did poorly in school. Even today, he can barely read or write. Yet, he creates some of the smallest sculptures in the world, relying on nothing more than a scalpel and a microscope to see what he's carving.

His entire piece of Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin standing on the moon fits on the head of a pin. His Statue of Liberty is made from a speck of gold. A recent carving of the Obama family is mounted inside the eye of a needle. Mr. Wigan says he used an eyelash to insert the president into the right slot. Mr. Wigan has made about 160 of these sculptures.

I love stories that defy popular notion that to get ahead you have to do well in school.  Some of the most creative minds don't have a chance.

Miro study journal page 3

Miro could not "see" objectively.  When looking at  still life's or models, he could record them as he "felt" them, emotionally, but not 'objectively', as others saw them.  Miro saw thing like a child, subjectively.  He didn't distinguish between animate and inanimate objects.  All were animated by his vision.  Nor did he distinguish between the appearance and the emotional resonance of his models.

Miro page 2

Joan Miro (April 20, 1893 - December 25, 1983) was a Spanish Catalan Painter, sculptor, and ceramist born in Bacelona.

Earning international acclaim, his work has been interpreted as Surrealism, a sandbox for the subconscious mind, a re-creation of the childlike, and a manifestation of Catalan pride.  In numerous interviews dating from 1930 onwards, Miro expressed contempt for conventional painting methods as a way of supporting the bourgeois society, and famously declared an "assassination of painting" in favor of upsetting the visual elements of established painting.

Influenced by

This reminds me of Rube Goldberg inventions.

A JOURNEY ON THE SHOULDER OF GIANTS

 I want this to be a journey of self discovery as an aritst.

For I heard the following from the philosophers, The wisest of the philosophers asked: "We admit that our predecessors were wiser than we. At the same time we criticize their comments, often rejecting them and claiming that the truth rests with us. How is this possible?" The wise philosopher responded: "Who sees further a dwarf or a giant? Surely a giant for his eyes are situated at a higher level than those of the dwarf. But if the dwarf is placed on the shoulders of the giant who sees further? ... So too we are dwarfs astride the shoulders of giants. We master their wisdom and move beyond it. Through their wisdom we grow wise and are able to say all that we say, but not because we are greater than they"

So one of the giants that I wish to recognize is Susan Sorrell.  In her beginning embroidery class she mentions using Joan Miro as a "jumping off point for our design."  I had never heard of Miro Joan.  I decided to study his work like a student.  I bought some hemp paper to make a book and decided that I would fill it with images that I liked in his paintings.  These are not meant to exactly portray his paintings, but to be a study of his art work.

Here is the first page.

About Susan Sorrell
Her shop
Susan Sorrell flickr page