Some awe

I have recently discovered the work of Willard Wigan, a 50 year old artist from Birmingham. Describing himself as a micro-miniaturist, Wigan makes tiny artworks, so small that they are visible only when viewed under a microscope. The picture to the left is the cast of The Wizard of Oz in the eye of a needle. Each character in this montage is about three times smaller than this full stop. Wigan makes most of his artworks out of nylon, and then paints them using a hair taken from the head of a housefly. It sounds like something from the Queen Mab speech in Romeo & Juliet - but it's real and breath-taking.

Sadly, Wigan recently found his own work breath-taking at an inopportune moment - while putting a tiny Alice into her chair at the end of the Mad Hatter's tea party, he took a breath and inhaled her. The schadenfreude side of me was tickled a great deal by this story - but since I contined my research of Wigan's work, I have discoverd that he finds his work almost unbearable - the stillness he must attain, working 'in between heartbeats', is a tremendous pressure - and now I feel guilty for laughing.

His entire 40-year career can fit into a single matchbox but I find the patience and skill needed, the Heath Robinson-esque solutions he's found to working in such tiny ways, both inspiring and moving. A strange and unique contribution to British art - and certainly no less valuable than a shark in formaldehyde.

When I say inspiring, I should perhaps clarify that I don't mean that I might try this myself. Art is one of the few career areas I haven't considered in my 15 year quest to find a career. I haven't the patience, the creativity, the originality or the talent - and I feel no sense of sadness or loss about it. But this one man with his extraordinary conviction, his dedication and precision - that is inspiring, and as I sit here, wasting away beneath thankless administrative tasks, I wish anew that I had found a more lasting career goal and that I was now carving my way into a strange and wonderful niche of my own.

Most of the time I can stay focussed on the fact that my current job is funding a move into the London housing market and thus justifies my continued daily commute into town. But the true extent of my limited options hit home last Friday morning as I was in the hospital having an invasive internal check-up and the following conversation occurred:

Doctor: Are you OK?
Me: No, I hate this.
Nurse: Well, let's talk about something else. You off to work after this?
Me: Yes. Annoyingly.
Nurse: Oh, what do you do? Don't you like it?
Me: No - I work in the City - I'm trying to save up enough money to move out of home and then I'll do something else. I'm not sure what though.
[Doctor stifles laugh.]
Nurse: Well, there's no rush is there?
Me: Well, actually, I've just turned 30.
Doctor: Ha! It's a bit late now then, isn't it.

So, to add insult to internal exam, while my legs were in stirrups, a dedicated doctor, smugly contented with her life-saving vocation, dissected my remaining career possibilities and found me wanting. Not a highlight of my morning, I can assure you. I don't normally leave her room with a spring in my step, but on this occasion I shuffled out, blanketed with the unpleasant sense of another's genuine relief that she hadn't lived my life of confusion and missed opportunities. I comforted myself with the fact that my list of Most-Viewed Items In My Workplace does not include 'cervix'.