You probably know this long and thin wood cylinder object that we use as writing or drawing instrument which we called the pencil. Surprisingly, pencils can be used to create colorful sculptures taking various forms. Today, I fall in love with an artist’s work of unique and exquisite unusual fine art made with pencils. Her name is Jennifer Maestre and she uses pencils as the medium to create her sculptures. Jennifer has always been involved in some kind of creative projects in her life. In her early 30’s, she went to Mass College of Art where she majored in Glass Art. As her career progresses, Jennifer invented the art of pencil sculptures. They don’t teach such type of art in school!

In order to create the pencil sculptures, hundreds of pencils are cut into 1-inch sections. Then they are drilled with a hole in each section so that they resemble beads. Next they are sharpen and sew together using the peyote stitch technique. Jennifer expressed that the pencil sculptures present aspects of sharp and smooth for two very different textural and aesthetic experience. To her, there is a true fragility to the sometimes brutal aspect of the sculptures; vulnerability that is belied by the fearsome texture.

The inspiration for her work came from animals, plants, Ernst Haeckel, Odilon Redon, mythology and other art. One piece of sculptures for her will sometimes give ideas to the next piece of work. Sometimes mistakes can lead to a new whole different direction. It all started with one idea as Jennifer summarized below:

“It all comes from one idea I had for a box with a secret compartment that would contain a pearl. The box would be shaped like a sea urchin, made of silver. In order to open the box and reveal the secret compartment, you’d have to pull on one of the urchin’s spines. The idea was of something beautiful, sculptural, but that you wouldn’t necessarily want to touch, and that also held a secret treasure.”

You can see more of her work on JenniferMaestre.com. I hope you will enjoy her sculptures as much as I do! :mrgreen: