JOAN KILLION doesn't consider herself a miniaturist, and indeed not all of her work is small. But scale influences the way she sees things and what she is drawn to create. Her work is featured in the Center's Miniatures exhibit and she is teaching the workshop "Miniature Magic" this spring.

Killion makes all kinds of art-handmade paper and books, constructions of found objects, collages-and she likes to combine materials, especially hard and soft ones. Inspired by artist Joseph Cornell, many of Killion's works feature small and/or found objects gathered in containers or boxes. Some of her clay pieces resemble Egyptian figurines or other ancient sculptures. Clay bodies are nested inside wooden boxes, for example, or arranged in glass vitrines. One memorable sculpture, a soft, stuffed body with found porcelain legs, hangs like an ornament from Killion's living room ceiling. Many of her handmade books are no bigger than an inch or two square. Her collection of other artist's books is kept in a cigar-box-size carton decorated with her own collage.

Killion's studio holds a lifetime of work and includes storage and display space and project areas with all sorts of works-in-progress. Gaston Bachelard's Poetics of Space lies on a table, and she talks about Lewis Carroll and her love of poetry. Brimming with the physical manifestation of her ideas, the studio is, at the same time, organized and neat as a pin, a reflection of Killion's considered approach to her art.

"I like a feeling of mystery, and the miniature world can capture that," Killion says. "It's not our world, but sometimes we can enter into it." Some of her containers open up to reveal their contents. She and another artist once created an entire "museum," inviting fellow artists to create tiny works inside of match boxes. "There are wonderful surprises in miniature," Killion says.

"I am drawn to the handheld," she explains of the lure of the diminutive. "Small works can have as much power as large ones."