Many artists have used pencils to create works of art – but Dalton Ghetti creates miniature masterpieces on the tips of pencils. The Brazilian born, Connecticut based artist carefully crafts the tips of pencils into amazing micro sculptures.
These miniature masterpieces are a side project for the professional carpenter, who has been perfecting this art for the last 25 years.
One of the most fascinating things about these tiny works of art is that he has never sold them, he has only given them away to friends as gifts.
He works as a carpenter and carves pencils in his free time - often putting in just an hour or so before his eyes get tired. It can take years to finish an especially complicated piece - a linked chain in the middle of a pencil took him two years, and a carefully crafted giraffe even longer.
Along with his other projects, Ghetti is slowly carving a tiny graphite tear for every 9/11 victim, finishing one each morning before he goes to work, and estimates it will take him 10 years to finish and display them together.
A tiny saw, using both, the wood and graphite of a single pencil.
A sculpture of Elvis Presley wearing shades, carved from a single pencil.
Dalton has a box full of more than 100 sculptures that have broken while working on them. He affectionately calls them ‘the cemetery collection'.
