I can do something that no one else on a planet of 7 billion people can.

April 14, 2016 4:02 PM

Inside the studio of the “micro-engraver” who works between heartbeats to keep his hand steady. Graham Short carves using “a needle pushed into a wooden engravers’ handle,” along with a microscope to see his work and a strap to keep his arm steady. His portrait of Queen Elizabeth II “is carved onto a speck of gold stuffed into the eye of a needle.”
posted by Rangi (31 comments total)

This is fascinating, although

But although the swimming helps slow his heart significantly, it is no longer enough. Several years ago a pharmacist friend began prescribing him pills—potassium, magnesium and beta-blockers. “I eat them like sweets,” he admits. When he works, his heart rate drops to as low as 20 beats per minute.

I know classical musicians have used beta-blockers for years, but, er, is it healthy to use them that often and slow your heart that much?
posted by teponaztli at 4:06 PM on April 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

Nope.
posted by saturday_morning at 4:10 PM on April 14, 2016 [5 favorites]

That is some amazing dedication to craft. I hope this article gets him some of the notice he wants and deserves.
posted by oddman at 4:12 PM on April 14, 2016

He'll never make it big doing this.
posted by crazylegs at 4:17 PM on April 14, 2016 [40 favorites]

Amazing and ultimately sort of bizarrely pointless. A very private sort of art.

I'm trying to decide how hard it would be to build a machine to do engraving this fine. I mean a traditional mechanical machine, not some funky electromagnet thing. It's sort of amazing to me the human arm can both place 100 pound stones into a drywall and also engrave something so delicately.
posted by Nelson at 4:24 PM on April 14, 2016 [7 favorites]

Another problem: Nearly 10 years ago he found himself blinking more and more rapidly, because peering through the microscope for long periods strained his eyes. Now he has botox injections around his eyes every few weeks to hold the muscles in place. Sometimes, when his eyeballs become too dry, he has to move his eyelids over them by hand.

Horrorshow.

Still pretty amazing work, though. This requires ridiculous patience.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 4:33 PM on April 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

Devotion. And not the lighthearted kind. I wonder if he is religious.
posted by solarion at 4:38 PM on April 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

Every time I read about the sacrifices people make to reach the outer limits of human achievement I think, man, I am so OK with being a little above average.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 4:57 PM on April 14, 2016 [22 favorites]

Frankly his swim schedule is way more impressive than the engraving.
posted by Mei's lost sandal at 5:06 PM on April 14, 2016 [4 favorites]

More than once he has dropped completed works as he removes them from the microscope, but they are so small he has been unable to find them again on the greasy carpet of his studio.

oh my god, the vicarious horror is strong
posted by BungaDunga at 5:07 PM on April 14, 2016 [24 favorites]

I am usually careless about floor coverings. Were I he, though, I'd probably change to something less greasy and carpety, or at the very least put down some paper before removing a work. At least after the first time.
posted by Devonian at 5:17 PM on April 14, 2016 [5 favorites]

*AACHOOO-!*

Um, sorry.
posted by Artw at 5:21 PM on April 14, 2016 [3 favorites]

Both the work itself and the lengths he goes to in order to accomplish it are extremely impressive, but... a quote from Lincoln on a bullet, of all things? Aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the curio?
posted by Halloween Jack at 5:41 PM on April 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

Amazing and ultimately sort of bizarrely pointless.

No more so than, say, sports.
posted by mhoye at 5:43 PM on April 14, 2016 [8 favorites]

While these are really tiny engravings, it seems to me that they could still go smaller, and that the limits of micro-engraving haven't yet been met.
In fact, we're only just scratching the surface.
posted by Flashman at 5:58 PM on April 14, 2016 [15 favorites]

Also within the realms of the microscopic, Vik Muniz has collaborated with Marcelo Coelho to produce tiny drawings of sand castles etched onto individual grains of sand. They're displayed as huge photographs, which is supposed to create a sort of vertiginous wonder at the collision of scales. But the achievement here is scientific, not artistic. Muniz traces the castles by hand and the etching is all done using focused ion beams. Amusing, but it hardly stands up next to Short's punishing, monkish discipline.

At the other end of things, there's the conceptual artist Tom Friedman's Untitled (1992), a .5mm ball of the artist's feces, displayed as a nearly invisible speck on a white pedestal. Very tiny art runs the gamut: the technical, the skilled, and pure shit.
posted by informavore at 5:59 PM on April 14, 2016 [14 favorites]

this feels a bit like a supervillain origin story
posted by indubitable at 6:12 PM on April 14, 2016 [20 favorites]

the limits of micro-engraving haven't yet been met

You might find this Wikipedia article on DNA origami interesting
posted by cnanderson at 6:18 PM on April 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

Amazing and ultimately sort of bizarrely pointless. A very private sort of art.

I get the feeling that the process and experience of creating the engravings is a big part of the point for him. He's pushing himself to the limits of what is possible, and losing himself in long stretches of extreme concentration. Reading the description of his work process conjures up images of monks and sadhus undertaking extreme ascetic rituals.

Miniature work can be an incredible contemplative aid. I'm not in anywhere near the league of Mr. Short, but I do create miniature, ephemeral paintings. It's a lovely feeling to sit with my paints and try to tame my body into stillness, holding my breath during difficult parts. You're lost in concentration and stillness, and suddenly you blink and it's two hours later. I have an essential tremor, and I have developed complex ways of bracing my hands while I work to avoid shaking and jerking. It feels like there's an art in even making the art possible. Which this guy has taken to its absolute extreme.
posted by bookish at 6:47 PM on April 14, 2016 [24 favorites]

What? Nobody's posted the Millhauser story yet? Okay, fine I'll do it.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 7:57 PM on April 14, 2016 [5 favorites]

Also, see - Tiny Jewels (previously)
posted by little eiffel at 8:47 PM on April 14, 2016

It's the red bull x-treme sports version of art. Daft and pointless.

No-one who is actually into contemporary art gives a shit about this kind of crap but he might make it in the guiness book of records.
posted by mary8nne at 10:32 PM on April 14, 2016

No-one who is actually into contemporary art gives a shit about this kind of crap

Which may not be the insult you think it is.
posted by bongo_x at 10:38 PM on April 14, 2016 [22 favorites]

It's the red bull x-treme sports version of art. Daft and pointless.

And yet Saatchi hasn't bought all his work yet. That's the really bizarre thing here.

I have to say that this response to another person's deeply personal struggle to achieve something that they feel worthwhile seems pretty depressing after coming out of the thoughtfulness of a lot of the comments in the Dwarf Fortress thread. The contemporary art establishment has no interest in Tarn Adams' work either, it's just that he's lucky enough not to give a shit about them.
posted by howfar at 12:50 AM on April 15, 2016 [5 favorites]

mary8anne, that was truly an unnecessarily nasty and mean-spirited way of saying that this isn't your thing. Why did you do that?
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 4:36 AM on April 15, 2016 [3 favorites]

Daft and pointless

I don't see how it's any more pointless than any other piece of art. And I love art.
posted by ultraviolet catastrophe at 6:39 AM on April 15, 2016

Yeah I don't get the nasty comment about "this kind of crap", it's unwelcome. When I said Amazing and ultimately sort of bizarrely pointless. A very private sort of art I intended it with equal parts bewilderment and respect. I don't really get this particular art other than an exercise, but I admire the hell out of the skill and dedication. I appreciate the other folks here explaining what it means to them.
posted by Nelson at 7:08 AM on April 15, 2016 [2 favorites]

"The best way to predict your future is to create it". That is quite a quote to put on the futuremost tip of a bullet.
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 8:12 AM on April 15, 2016 [2 favorites]

It looks like the bullet is a Minie ball, a bullet most commonly associate with the American Civil war. In a sense, it was the primary means through which President Lincoln created his future.
posted by VTX at 9:02 AM on April 15, 2016 [1 favorite]

Atomic Force Microscopic nanolithography.

A gallary of nanolithography.

Marilyn Monroe.
posted by porpoise at 4:40 PM on April 15, 2016

So, one of my room-mates, way back in the day, was a Comercial Diver, (one of the riskiest jobs out there, BTW).

I was invited out on a local job, because of my interest in then-new videography, and marine experience. Sitting on the barge, with the dive-tender, I became alarmed when I noticed that it had been over a minute since I'd seen any bubbles rise to the surface. Pointing this out to the Standby Diver, he laughs casually, and said "Yep. That's 'cause he's welding."
posted by PareidoliaticBoy at 11:32 PM on April 15, 2016