Curious Pursuits

The flea chariot made it safely up to Manchester in time for the opening night of the Curious Pursuits exhibition by Porter and Jenkinson set in the delightful Portico Library and Gallery.





The exhibition runs till the end of February at The Portico Library & Gallery, 55 Mosley St, Manchester, Greater Manchester M2 3HY, UK

Photos by Keith Clark

Two miniature museumes, Guadelest, Spain

The metro reported yesterday morning of museums in the Benidorm area of Spain. One of them was the "Micro Gigantic" in Guadelest. When I searched for more details, I discovered that there are actually two museums with miniature exhibits in Guadalest. The Micro Gigantic and the Museo de Micro Miniatures which also has a collection of interesting items.



Obviously the exhibit that attracted my attention was the Flea riding a bicycle along the edge of a seed but they have a range of other marvelous miniature exhibits. Unless there are several fleas riding bicycles in existence, I believe this one to be the creation of Willard Wigan.

A selection of paintings by Goya such as 'fusilamiento 3 de Mayo' painted on a grain of rice and 'The Naked Maja' painted on the wing of a fly. There is also a sculpture of a camel passing through the eye of a needle, a full Bible inscribed on a piece of hair and a violin scaled to be played by an ant.

Miniatures Museum: Calle Iglesia, 5
Micro-Gigantic Museum: Calle del Sol, 2

Guadalest town website
Miniature museums around Europe.
More Micromini exhibitions.
Works by Willard Wigan.

A chance to own a microscopic piece of art

The London Evening Standard is running a charity Christmas Auction for Kids Company.



One of the lots (No 21) is a unique piece of microsculpture from Willard Wigan. The Scales of Justice is perched on a pinhead, and comes with a purpose-built, wall-mounted, magnifying display cabinet. Bidding starts at £5000 and the final sale price will go to support Kids Company.

Historic Japanese Flea and other insects

The above image of a flea is part of Kenbikyō Mushi No Zu (”Illustrations of Microscopic Insects”), a scroll published in 1860. The scroll contains paintings of a series of insects and seen through a microscope.

The Tohoku University Library houses the original copy of the Kenbikyō Mushi No Zu scroll.

Source: Stephen Reinhardt of Tessella Zine and edo of Pink Tentacle

Another Flea Circus T-Shirt

Here's another Flea Circus t-shirt design, this time from "grypes" of Shared Areas.

Flea Circus T-Shirt

This Flea Circus T-Shirt by BSWeber was spotted on Woot today.

Hooke's Flea on tour in the Hayward Gallery

Robert Hooke's 1665 drawing of a flea has gone south of the river for a few weeks. On loan from the Royal Society's collection at UCL it's now visible at the Hayward Gallery as part of Mark Wallinger's exhibition The Russian Linesman, "Frontiers, Borders and Thresholds".



"Mark Wallinger, winner of the 2007 Turner Prize and one of Britain's most original and unpredictable artists, curates this unique exhibition exploring notions of the liminal: thresholds between physical, political or metaphysical realms."

Exhibition Details

Robert Hooke was a scientist and inventor and is credited with improving the barometer, anemometer, and hygrometer. However he is most famous for his biological studies as documented in Micrographia which was made possible his design for a compound microscope based on Anton van Leeuwenhoek previous model. Hooke was asked by the Royal Society to confirm Leeuwenhoek's suggestion of microscoping life in water and duely did so. He also looked at Mites in Cheese, and the Blue of Plums confirming both to be living organisms.

ROBERT HOOKE (1635-1703)
Robert Hooke - experimental scientist
A picture of Robert Hooke

Microcosmos: Flea Circus

Leah Palmer Preiss, a freelance illustrator & calligrapher has designed this fabulous flea circus painting in acrylics.

She was inspired by the proverb

Big fleas have little fleas
Upon their backs to bite 'em,
And little fleas have lesser fleas,
And so ad infinitum.

Flea Art

There's a lot of people creating flea and flea circus related art. Here's one of my favourite recent finds, a chinese flea house. Hopefully I'll be able to collate enough works to have a Flea Circus Art page on the research library.

http://pot-aux-roses.blogspot.com/2008/02/illustration-friday-leap.html