Pencil Tip Sculpture

49-year-old Dalton Ghetti, a carpenter in Connecticut by profession, has been creating his tiny graphite sculptures for some 25 years.

He uses three tools — a razor blade, sewing needle and sculpting knife — to create his pieces.

He has never used a magnifying glass and has never sold a single work, preferring to give them away to his friends.

In an interview with Odd Stuff Magazine, he said, "I use the sewing needle to make holes or dig into the graphite.

I scratch and create lines and turn the graphite around slowly in my hand."

More: "The longest Dalton has spent on one piece was two and half years on a pencil with interlinking chains.

A standard figure will take several months.

He said: 'The interlinking chains took the most effort and I was really pleased with it because it’s so intricate people think it must be two pencils.'"

And: "When Dalton, from Connecticut, USA, first started he would become frustrated when a piece would break before being finished after he had spent months working on it.

He said: 'It would drive me mad when I would be just a bit too heavy handed and the pencil’s tip would break.

I would get very nervous sometimes, particularly when the piece was almost finished, and then I would make a mistake.

I decided to change the way I thought about the work – when I started a new piece my attitude would be ‘well this will break eventually but let’s see how far I get.

It helped me break fewer pencils, and although I still do break them, it’s not as often.'"

Finally: "Dalton, who is originally from Brazil, has a box full of more than 100 sculptures that have broken while working on them that he affectionately calls 'the cemetery collection [below].'

He said: 'I have quite a few broken pieces so I decided to glue them on pins and into styrofoam for a display case. People might think it’s weird I keep them but they’re still interesting. I worked on them for months so they might be dead now but at one point I gave them life.'"

[via Milena]