The Miniature Worlds of Bruce Metcalf was published to coincide with the artist’s exhibition at the Palo Alto Art Center in 2008. The exhibition and publication illustrates the artist’s interest in architecture, comics, and the narrative voice. Also examined are the social, moral, and political issues that Metcalf has raised in his essays. In his work, issues are acted out by his vulnerable protagonists on the stage of miniature worlds. Cast in silver, or carved in wood, Metcalf’s characters with their emotionally-distorted bodies manifest inflicted pain from human nature’s “dark side.” With their atrophied limbs, they are powerless in confronting Sisyphean ordeals in their worlds. Metcalf purposely leavens these conditions with wit. Physically big-headed, all Metcalf’s figures are born from cartoon traditions. These characters with big brains are strangely credible, as they ponder Metcalf’s overarching themes—the human condition, nurturing the juncture of nature and culture, and issues of dissent. As morally charged inventions, The Miniature Worlds of Bruce Metcalf reside in the same realms of imagination as Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels and Lewis Carroll’s fabulous Through The Looking Glass (And What Alice Found There).

• ISBN – 978-0-9636922-8-3
• published by the Palo Alto Art Center
• written by Signe Mayfield, Bruce Metcalf and Dr. Vicky A. Clark
• format: soft cover and clothbound with dustjacket
• dimensions: 7.75″ x 11.25″
• 120 page plus cover / 74 color plates
• publication year: 2008
• softcover: out of print
• hardcover: out of print
• order number: softcover: FAP-115S / hardcover: FAP-115H