Art Pencil Sculpture by Dalton Ghetti

Artist Dalton Ghetti, a Brazilian native now living in the USA, has been carving miniature sculptures into the graphite of pencils since he was a school boy in Brazil. 

However, he makes a living as a carpenter. He received his associate’s degree in architecture from Norwalk Community Technical College. Perhaps the most surprising thing about Ghetti’s sculptures is that he does not use a magnifying glass of any sort while creating his pieces.

He does them all by hand and most of the time all he needs is a razor blade, a sewing needle, and very bright light. In order to protect his eyes and keep them from getting tired, he only works on his pencils for about an hour and a half a day. The time restraint and the tiny, intricate details make for a long process; his pieces can take months to years to complete.

It took Ghetti about two and half years to complete Alphabet, a set of 26 pencils with each letter of the alphabet carved into the tip of the graphite. The letters are in perfectly block shaped, reminiscent of letter magnets.

In recognition of his career as a carpenter, he has also created a series of mini sculptures of tools such as a hammer and a saw. 

Ghetti’s work was recently exposed at the New Britain Museum of American Art in the exhibition Meticulous Masterpieces: Contemporary Art by Dalton Ghetti, Les Lourigan, and Jennifer Maestre.