Making a Point

American students from the University of New Hampshire in Durham have made a point about their crippling debts with a sculpture made from 32,320 pencils

The sculpture, shaped like a giant graduation cap, was unveiled on April 15th (2013) in a bid to grab the attention of legislators, and each pencil represents a dollar’s worth of debt. The protest highlights cuts in funding that have hit New Hampshire students hard.

But this is not the first time that a huge number of pencils have been used to make a sculpture.

Last May, British students from the University of Cumbria created imaginative crown sculptures using pencils to celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. The pencils were donated by the world-famous Cumberland Pencil Company and the finished sculptures exhibited at the Cumberland Pencil Museum in Keswick as part of a special jubilee display. The Cumberland Pencil Company, which makes the famous Derwent artist’s colour pencils, celebrated its 180th birthday last year.