Making a fine point: City artist’s pencil carvings spread positivity

Brazilian artist Dalton M. Ghetti was deeply affected by the events of September 11, 2001, and created a memorial to honour the victims of the attack by carving one teardrop every day for each of the victims. Individual teardrops were carved from the graphite of recycled pencils found on streets and sidewalks. While doing this little did Dalton know that a youngster, 10,000 miles away, would be inspired by his work and take up pencil carving to create awareness on sensitive topics like water conservation and women’s safety.

Meet city-based youngster Kailash Babu, who creates miniature sculptures out of the lead at the tip of pencils. “I’ve always had this fascination for pencils and have collected around 1,000 pencils so far. I was inspired by Dalton’s work: using only his hands, naked eyes and a razor blade, he created one teardrop in little less than one hour,” he says.

After his engineering degree, Kailash was focusing on macro photography, where he takes pictures of insects and other small objects. “I was interested in all things macro and Dalton’s work inspired me a lot. I started closely observing his works and dropped pursuing photography,” he tells us.

A self-taught artist, Kailash started practising pencil carving with pocket knives and shaving blades. “It took me around 1.5 years to master the craft. I started carving English alphabet and later moved to various objects. That’s when I learned that art can be used as a medium to create awareness. My first project was about water conservation. I also did pencil carving based on the theme of sexual harassment and women’s safety,” says Kailash, who has done 235 pencil carvings till date.

The artist, who spends 8-9 hours each day to create miniature art, says that breath control and good eyesight are the two factors that should be taken care of while creating the sculptures. “Since I don’t use magnifiers and instead use naked eyes to create pencil sculptures, I make sure that I give ample exercise and rest to my eyes. Also, control of one’s breath is another important aspect as even a deep breath could break the pencil lead.Another skill an artist needs is a truckload of patience,” cautionsKailash.

His smallest work is a chair that is 0.7 mm and he wanted to attempt some world records in future.