Small Scale, Big World

The dozens of artists and craftspeople featured in this volume
create miniature representations of real-world scenes—everything
from housewares, such as a thumb-sized rice cooker, to
storefronts and cliffside dwellings suspended in test tubes, all
the way up to entire multi-story buildings, with every detail preserved
inside and out. Each of these exquisite works tells an intriguing
story, encapsulating history, culture and memory, and
elevating everyday items – the signage on the side of a garbage
can, a rusted downspout – to objects worthy of artistic representation,
prompting us through this striking shift of scale to perceive
the world in whole new ways.
Among the featured artists, Tatsuya Tanaka brings Japanese
iconography into his master work “Miniature Calendar,” while
Joshua Smith from Australia, keeps streets and addresses and
memory alive by re-creating them in miniature, freezing them in
time, complete with weeds and water stains. This book not only
digs into the stories behind the works, but provides guidance for
those who are ready to try their own hand at mini crafts. Three
masters share their inspirations and techniques by revealing a
detailed process of a single masterpiece.