Art

I went to Baltimore with L. on Saturday, and one of the places we went was the American Visionary Art Museum. There were a lot of interesting exhibits by artists, most of whom have mental illness or mental retardation. Most of the pieces were extremely interesting, but the ones that really got me were the ones by Dalton Ghetti. He makes unbelievably intricate sculptures by carving the graphite in pencils without using a magnifying glass. Here are some pictures of his work and here's an article about him in the New York Times. The pieces they had on display at AVAM included a bust of Elvis, the letters of the alphabet, two interlocking hearts, a church, and the chain that is seen in the NYT article. This chain was carved from the graphite in the middle of the pencil and each link is interlocking. First, imagine how hard it would be to do that with a big block of wood, then imagine doing it with a tiny pencil. Simply amazing.