Sometimes art comes in big doses: the first time in a room with a wealth of Jackson Pollocks, the sweatiness from an initial screening of Werner Herzog's Aguirre: The Wrath of God, seeing Bowie take to Ziggy with fey glittery zeal.

Sometimes art is bite-sized.

It may seem odd to compare local chocolatier Tom Sciascia to Pollock, Herzog or Bowie. But tasting "Al Cappuccino" — one of 28 flavors of handmade artisanal chocolate he and his one-man company, The Painted Truffle, makes — is a sunburst of flavor and experience akin to Chuck Close's circling pools of paint and energy. Eating one of Sciascia's truffles is, in Willy Wonka-speak, the golden ticket, a delicious art form soaked in love and sadness and solitude. And raspberry liqueur and caramel and coconut.

"I wanted to make something that made me happy, that reminded me of what it meant to be happy as a child, to make other people happy," says Sciascia (pronounced "sha sha") from the North Wales, Pa., studio/home he shares with his wife and two daughters, his large-scale paintings, his graphic designs and trays of chocolate.

Sciascia, 41, wanted to make something happy because he was not. After studying medical illustration and graphic design at Arcadia University, Sciascia created Gargoyle Communications, a home-based graphic design company, with his wife, Loren, in 1990. All was well until 9/11, when business floundered and the stock market was on the downstroke.

Instead of wallowing, Sciascia decided to rebuild anew by reconnecting with his roots as the son and grandson of professional chefs, indulging his love of cookbooks. Like a guy who buys Playboy for the articles, Sciascia initially purchased these volumes mainly for their photos. "These foods looked incredible."

Eventually he tried making artisanal bread: sourdoughs — nine loaves every three days — that use the purest ingredients and everything-from-scratch recipes and techniques. It was like chemistry, complex and rewarding.

Then he took the next step: artisanal chocolates. First, a coconut truffle recipe glommed from his mom, but kicked up a notch with white chocolate. Because of a love of bananas Foster, he created "Banana-Bo-Bana" with scads of rich banana creme. He created the hazelnut truffle because of his daughter Sydney's peanut allergy.

Chocolate became a new canvas — a tiny one, since Sciascia also paints large realist landscapes 6 feet by 4 feet. "They became little sculptures to me."

Quaintly designed cards tell the stories behind each chocolate. "Monkey's Uncle" informs us that Spaniards think of coconuts as monkeys' faces. "Nuts About Sicily" was inspired by his visit to that city, where he stepped off the boat and felt the warm winds of Africa.

Of Sciascia and his products, DiBruno Bros. buyer Lisa Alois says: "Everything about what he did was appealing — the taste of the chocolates, their presentation in cool sleek tins with their little stories of how they came to be." Alois first heard about Sciascia and his chocolate from former DiBruno cheese buyer Lisa Bogan, who saw Sciascia serving his chocolates at a Union League function. "He was just giving away his chocolates — catering them, not selling them," says Alois. "Bogan came back immediately and said we have to be the first." And they were the first, even before the Four Seasons made his truffles its exclusive gift-shop brand.

"I did everything wrong until I did it right," says Sciascia.

There are three basic types of gourmet chocolate: the hand-rolled artisanal truffle that Sciascia makes; the square-cut, hand-dipped or enrobed sort; and the sort where you set a mold, insert a filling and place a bottom on it. The hand-rolled truffle is a rarity, seen almost exclusively on restaurant petit four trays. They take three days to make: one day one, he prepares the ganache, infusing cream with fruit, coffee or other fresh ingredients; on day two, he scoops the ganache and rolls them into balls; on day three, he tempers the chocolate and enrobes the balls in yet more chocolate. This time and effort doesn't come cheap; DiBruno's sells tins of 14 Painted Truffles pieces for $29.99; five pieces cost $11.99.

"These flavors are those I thought people would love, things they're familiar with," says Sciascia. "The artisanal stuff — it looks beautiful, tastes pure and the process, though complicated, makes it worthwhile. Each truffle — their name, their look, the story — has its own character. I wanted to create something happy for everyone — me included — with these chocolates."

Spoken like a real Wonka.