At school I'd want to be so small that nobody could see me, and so my work depicts and reflects me - what it felt like to grow up in a world of pain.

The microscopic world became my obsession.

When I first heard that Barack Obama was going to be the first black president, I wanted to do the smallest, biggest tribute in history.

I started making houses for ants because I thought they needed somewhere to live. Then I made them shoes and hats. It was a fantasy world I escaped to where my dyslexia didn't hold me back and my teachers couldn't criticize me. That's how my career as a micro-sculptor began.

I became obsessed with making more and more tiny things. I think I was trying to find a way of compensating for my embarrassment at having learning difficulties: people had made me feel small so I wanted to show them how significant 'small' could be.

When I was a kid, I had trouble at school because of my learning disabilities. Carving is my body compensating for the lack of other skills.

I'm like a mad professor, but without the spiky hair.