Small World
MINIATURE ART IS ALL ABOUT POWER,” SAYS JAY Kupjack, tapping the ash of his cigarette into a red ceramic mug. “It’s about having control over something tiny. You are so much bigger and more powerful, and you could destroy it.”
Whether this dark sentiment drove Kupjack’s father and brother, also renowned miniaturists — the father’s work is enshrined in the Art Institute’s beloved Thorne Miniature Rooms — can’t be known. They are both dead. Their ashes are somewhere here in Kupjack’s cluttered Pilsen workshop. He can’t find them. “We have a dog that was cremated that’s here too. Quite a little group.”
With his receding mane of gray-blond hair, frizzled sideburns,
