Itty-Bitty Art
There’s certainly a difference between big art and mini art, but it’s not simply a matter of size. Each end of the spectrum draws our attention in distinct ways. While large art can have an overall immersive impact, small art requires that we look ever more closely rather than stand at a distance. Astonished by the tiniest details, we wonder how the artist managed to create them. At least, that’s how I felt at Bits + Pieces: Contemporary Art on a Small Scale at Bedford Gallery, in Walnut Creek, California. On view until December 17, the exhibit “explores the cultural phenomenon of miniature things.”
[left to right] Blue and White Bowl (2023), Brass Garden Spray (2023),
Silver Water Vessel (2023), by Laura Critchlow.
The 16 international artists featured in the show are painters, ceramicists, sculptors, weavers, embroiderers, and more. Given the micro scale some of them work in, if you can, go to Bedford Gallery to see how tiny art can become. My photos can’t fully capture the dimensional aspects, but I hope they’ll provide a sense of the “bits & pieces” theme. In person, one physically feels the open spaciousness of the exhibit, which is a deliberate intention on the part of curator Emilee Enders. Instead of cramming together a lot of little things, she wanted each artist to have his/her own “room.” She found that people wind up spending more time examining the small works than in a show of large paintings, where visitors generally take in the art at a glance and then walk on.
Blue and White Bowl (2023), by Laura Crichtlow.
British artist Laura Critchlow had grandparents who were, she admits, hoarders. During her childhood, she was enchanted by the plethora of things they obtained at secondhand shops and rummage sales, including the blue and white bowl in her miniature painting above. Like the Dutch Masters, but on a different scale, she adds fruits and, in other paintings, flowers. She says, “l'm drawn to studying work where light, tone and value create the drama.” In her acute attention to details, Critchlow turns the miniatures into a document of a moment in time, when a simple piece of fruit is illuminated in its ripeness or a flower is brilliant in its blossomed beauty.
Untied, Joyride (2019), by Kendal Murray.
Australian artist Kendal Murray uses tweezers, sewing needles, magnifying glasses, and other tools to create playful vignettes at 1:87 scale. She laboriously assembles found objects (e.g., mirrored makeup compacts), tiny toys, pebbles, fiber, paper, and paint to achieve whimsical yet open-ended narratives. Murray explains, “I use the miniature as a metaphor for our inner life, created by memories and imaginings. The tiny sculptures reimagine these familiar experiences as dream-like fantasies.”
Weekday, Faraway (2019), by Kendal Murray.
In creating Weaver of All, Hungarian artist Ágnes Herczeg used silk thread (for needle lace) and hand-carved wood to portray the intimate relationship between human beings and Nature. In her everyday activities in a small town next to the Danube River, she notices points of beauty. They lead her to collect driftwood from the river bank and dry branches from under the trees to carve tiny scenes. Herczeg embellishes the wood with lace and pillow lace, for which thin wires provide contours and structure. When her work emerges as a picture, she then dyes the lace. Below, a close-up shot of Fresh Dead Leaves reveals more of her technique/process. When asked about her preference, she says, “I like working in small scale the best, not only because it's closest to my heart, but I find every piece a technical challenge again and again.”
Weaver of All (2022), by Ágnes Herczeg.
Close-up of Fresh Dead Leaves (2022),
by Ágnes Herczeg
I was astonished to learn that American ceramicist Andrea Fábrega constructed each of the 30 minuscule porcelain pieces on display by sitting at a full-sized potter’s wheel. Since her fingers are too big and awkward to work so small, she made her own tools by repurposing those of surgeons and dentists. Fábrega’s “goal is to distill the elements of a functioning vessel into a tiny space and draw the viewer in for an intense personal experience.” As a girl, she loved miniatures and collected them with her mother, but gave them up for a career in economics. When she realized how much she hated her job, she returned to her childhood passion but from a different position: “I started making miniature pots trying to recapture the sense of play my adult life was lacking. Very soon into this journey, however, I was overcome by the amazing and unlimited potential of porcelain. Pushing the material to perform on a micro scale fascinates me.”
30 Miniature Pots (1991-2007), by Andrea Fábrega.
Detail of 30 Miniature Pots, by Andrea Fábrega.
Detail of 30 Miniature Pots, by Andrea Fábrega.
It’s easy to imagine you can just bite into the chocolates created by American jewelry maker Carolyn Tillie. She combined 14k gold, chocolate, and Japanese gumball machine toys for That Which We Desire. It reflects her love of culinary arts, jewelry, and metalsmithing. The idea for it burgeoned when a friend returned from a trip to Tokyo. Tillie relates that the friend "brought with her a sampling of miniature plastic food, known as gashapon: “An onomatopoeia word in Japanese, it literally translates gash-a-pon as ‘coin-turn-drop’ being the gumball-machine toy offerings.” Tillie transformed them into jewelry and seemingly delectable treats.
That Which We Desire (2022), by Carolyn Tillie.
Spanish artist Isaac Cordal places his small-scale resin people and animals in unexpected urban sites, such as the crack in a building’s facade or hovering over a puddle on the sidewalk, in Montreal, London, Berlin, Paris, Barcelona, and Bogotá. Each figure depicts the contemporary human condition we can all identify with. Cordal's intention is to put “attention on society's devalued relationship with nature by looking, both humorously and critically, at the collateral effects of our evolution, in this case, climate change…and [to] spur the viewer to contemplate their own effect on the world.” He says, "Humor is a way to dress up drama. I think we need an overdose of humor every day to survive.”
Waiting for Climate Change 1, 2, 3, 4 (2021), by Isaac Cordal.
Waiting for Climate Change 2,
by Isaac Cordal.
Kaci Smith is an American painter and weaver. According to the gallery description, in 2020, during the early months of the Covid pandemic, she began weaving into branches that she found on daily walks. Then, at Thanksgiving, the turkey wishbone reminded her of those branches. She set it aside, but later turned the wishbone into an intricate tapestry in honor of the bird. Smith favors tapestry among the many kinds of weaving, for she considers it the most akin to painting as it allows her to create imagery by obscuring the warp with weft threads. When working with a wishbone or branch, she uses embroidery floss and handcrafts the small weaving with only a needle and threads. When asked about her double role as painter and weaver, she says, “Ironically, while I have been striving to expand the size of my paintings, my weavings have gradually dwindled in scale…The contrasting nature of these two mediums within my artistic practice continues to captivate me. The spontaneity and inherent messiness of my painting practice counterbalances the calming, meditative and intricate craftsmanship involved in creating small weavings. It is this shifting back and forth between the two that not only keeps my mind engaged but also fuels my inspiration.”
Wishbone Weavings (2023), by Kaci Smith.
Close-up of Wishbone Weavings, by Kaci Smith.
California artist Deborah Benioff Friedman sees faces in the whorls and ridges of her husband Thomas Russell’s thumbprints. She created the charming portraits in Tom’s Thumb during a two-year period when she was learning how to draw faces. When she ended up with more than 500 of them, she couldn’t help but wonder: Who are these tiny people? Could they be my ancestors? The children I never had? The neighbors I never see? Her process in making these images involves pressing a thumb or fingerprint on a 2 x 1.5-inch piece of watercolor paper. She carries the cards around in a small box and, whenever she finds herself with a free moment, draws faces with a Micropen. It’s not surprising that she cites the phenomenon of pareidolia as part of her process. She says, “I can stare at the fingerprint and very rapidly see the face that already lives within it, so that I just need to clarify its contours with my own lines.” A retired veterinary ophthalmologist, Benioff Friedman spent years observing the eyes of many different species and performing intricate surgery under a surgical microscope. The detail and precision required by such work have been instrumental in her delving into miniature art.
Tom's Thumb (2023), by Deborah Benioff Friedman with Thomas Russell.
Close-up of Tom's Thumb, by Deborah Benioff Friedman.
French artist Thibaut MALET is able to create minute fantasy worlds within glass globes by using teeny scalpels and tongs on beechwood. He has been working on this scale since childhood spent in his father’s woodworking shop. He even had a mini workshop in his bedroom. MALET finds inspiration in the minimalism of Scandinavian design and the exacting perfection of Japanese handwork. His entries in the exhibit include the long line of globes against a wall in the background as well as the three globes on a pedestal in the foreground. He sees the globes as protecting what’s inside as he tries “to create a metaphor, the memory of a place, our childhood home or an imaginary world where we would like to get lost.”
Tiny Tiny Landscapes (2023), by Thibaut MALET.
Close-up of Tiny Tiny Landscapes, by Thibaut MALET.
While Thibaut MALET encases make-believe worlds within small glass globes, American artist Tammie Knight depicts art worlds at a dollhouse scale of 1:12. She integrates photography and miniatures—her two lifelong passions—to create micro galleries that document and celebrate the Black experience through talented Black photographers. WE MATTER replicates a highly praised traveling exhibition of Adrian Octavius Walker’s work. Perhaps it was predictable that Knight uses the dollhouse size, for she worked at a Madison Avenue dollhouse shop while studying at the Parsons School of Design. In the construction process, she uses foam core and corrugated cardboard as well as her favorite materials—pine, cedar, walnut, and maple. She also buys X-acto blades in sets of 500 because she goes through dozens of them in a week. Why does Knight choose to work small? “I have been crafting and creating in miniature for over four decades, and I have more projects in my head than I will likely have the time to create,” she says. “Also, from a pragmatic perspective, working in small scale offers me opportunities to design and complete works that would take far more (bigger) resources and much more time than it takes to bring my vision to life in miniature.”
WE MATTER Micro Gallery (2020), by Tammie Knight.
Close-up of WE MATTER Micro Gallery, by Tammie Knight.
Close-up of WE MATTER Micro Gallery, by Tammie Knight.
The other artists in the exhibit have backgrounds that also include Canada, South Africa, Taiwan, Bulgaria, China, and Poland. Their entries are mixed media, video, photography, felting, and watercolor. The diverse combinations of techniques, subject matter, and the tiniest dimensions are intriguing. Before viewing the work of these artists, I had no idea that there are hundreds of groups and societies devoted entirely to creating such art. There is even a set of rules as to what constitutes miniature art: for instance, subjects should not exceed one-sixth their natural size. This exhibit has opened my eyes to a whole new and fascinating perspective from which to consider artwork.
