Amazing Pencil Lead Sculptures

As an artist myself, I get annoyed when I see the emails that circulate containing only photographs of mouth dropping art with no credit whatsoever to the creator. There’s no malicious intent of course, most people just pass things from friend to friend, and whoever copy and pasted it to begin with probably didn’t think anything of it. This is one such instance.

This morning I received an email from a friend containing some incredible images. Tiny little carvings and sculptures all from pencil lead! Oh, the steady hand and patience (not to mention good eyesight) that would be needed for this!

I did a little searching and found that these phenomenal creations were created by artist Dalton Ghetti. Dalton is a carpenter by trade and has been carving these tiny sculptures from graphite for over 25 years. A quote from Telegraph UK:

The 49 year old said: “At school I would carve a friend’s name into the wood of a pencil and then give it to them as a present. Later, when I got into sculpture, I would make these huge pieces from things like wood, but decided I wanted to challenge myself by trying to make things as small as possible. I experimented sculpting with different materials, such as chalk, but one day I had an eureka moment and decided to carve into the graphite of a pencil”

Even more amazing, Dalton doesn’t sell any of his work, only gives it away to his friends. The tools of his trade are a sewing needle, razor blade and a sculpting knife. He even has a “cemetery collection” for those pieces that broke before he could complete them.

Quote:

Dalton has made about 100 carvings, and is currently working on an epic piece inspired by the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center. He said: “I decided to make a teardrop pencil carving for each of the people who died in the attack, about 3,000. Since 2002 I have carved one every day, it takes me under an hour. When I’m done they will form one big tear drop. It will take me about 10 years but it will be worth it”

To see the entire slideshow and read about Dalton, go to Telegraph UK. Scroll over each picture and an arrow will appear, or use the next and previous buttons in the upper right side.

There are a few more pictures on Silvermine Guild Art Center’s website and quite a few more, including a photo of the artist, on Buzzfeed.

5 Comments so far

1. Lakshmi Sadala on August 24, 2010 2:26 pm

   Hi,
   I too got the email last week but never know the great artist. Thank you for your search and giving the information about the great artist.

2. Barbara Crawford on August 24, 2010 5:27 pm

   Absolutely awesome. Thanks for sharing!

3. meaghan mountford on August 25, 2010 2:18 am

   Incredible post on this incredible art. Bravo! I had seen these featured elsewhere, too, (credited, luckily), and was stunned by the intricacy as well!

4. Notebook on August 25, 2010 6:20 am

   10 years? Wow he must have been really emotionally affected. Too bad you can’t buy any of his work!

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