Miniature Microcosm Sculpture
Adult Class | Registration opens Tuesday, October 20, 2026 8:00 AM EDT
Explore the world of miniature sculpture by creating small-scale environments filled with imagined details, objects, and stories. Working with a variety of materials and found objects, you’ll experiment with scale, texture, composition, and assemblage to build your own tiny objects and microcosms.
What You Will Learn:
- Develop ideas for miniature environments and sculptural worlds working from memory, photographs and imagination.
- Experiment with scale, texture, layering, and composition.
- Learn techniques for combining found objects and mixed materials.
- Create a finished miniature sculpture with a strong sense of place and narrative.
- Explore contemporary and historical examples of artists engaged with miniatures in a multitude of ways, from Frances Glessner Lee to Liliana Porter, Joe Fig and Charles LeDray.
- Engage with ideas about the psychology of the miniature, discussing topics like scale, encyclopedic collections, childhood and longing.
- - X-acto type knife
- Pencil and eraser
- 2 containers of Krazy Glue Super Glue with precision tip (5 oz)
- Low heat glue gun and glue sticks
- 4 packs white Sculpey Premo oven bake clay (2 oz)
- 2 pieces of balsa wood (? inch or thicker)
- 1 piece of basswood (? inch or thicker) OR any sturdy piece of material like a thick cardboard
- 1 9 x 12" pad of smooth thick paper (Bristol board, mixed media paper or cold press watercolor paper)
- Tubes of water-based paint (acrylic or gouache works best) in a variety of colors
- Inexpensive bristle or synthetic brushes, 1” and 2” for glue and painting
- Palette (paper or plastic)
- Container for water
- Ruler
-Please bring some assorted collage materials: scraps of fabric in a variety of textures, ribbon, thread, magazines, postcards, cardboard, rocks and other small objects etc. (Bring a combination of 2D and 3D elements.) *not needed for first class
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Rachel Grobstein
Rachel Grobstein creates miniature paintings and sculptures, employing a radical scale shift and handmade detail to invite close scrutiny of often-overlooked parts of daily life, exploring memory, routine, and identity. She is the recipient of awards and residencies including a NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship in Craft/Sculpture, a Museum of Arts and Design Artist Studios residency, an Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation grant, a Roswell Artist-in-Residence Fellowship, a Jentel Foundation fellowship, a Hammersley Foundation Grant, a Studios of Key West residency, and a Vermont Studio Center Full Fellowship and Residency supported by the Joan Mitchell Foundation. Grobstein received her MFA in Painting from the Rhode Island School of Design and her BA in Philosophy and Visual Arts from Bowdoin College. She lives and works in Philadelphia, PA.
rachelgrobstein.com