Sculptures from matches

Sculptor Patrick Acton was born in Greene County, Iowa, USA, and grew up on a farm near Rippey. Patrick from childhood he loved tinkering. When his father bought him a bike, after two weeks it had an engine from a lawnmower. In the yard of their home in the tree Patrick built a house with Windows and heating. And he found once in the field abandoned the old Ford pickup and returned the machine to normal. And in 1977 he began to experiment with matches. For his sculptures out of matches is a simple hobby that brought him much more fame than his official job at the Consulate.

1. For this model of Notre Dame Patrick Acton used of 298,000 matchsticks, 2000 toothpicks and a whopping 55 litres of wood glue.

2. In 1977, after graduating from College, Patrick built his first matchstick model – a small copy of the local Church. He used matches. Bought at a local store, a bottle of school glue, a knife and a piece of sandpaper.

3. After nearly 10 years of "building", cutting off more than 100,000 heads from matchsticks, Acton contacted the company for the production of matches in Ohio and learned that you could buy without heads. This has dramatically accelerated its work, so the size of each model became larger as the number of matches.

4. Today Patrick Acton more than 60 detailed models of matches, each of which consists of 400 000 – 600 000 matches. Each takes 2-3 years. But Acton each year begins a new project.

5. Now Acton left his boring job at the Consulate and is actively cooperating with the program "believe it or not", creating models for various museums.

6. Model school of witchcraft and wizardry Hogwarts from the books and films about Harry Potter. Consists of 600 000 matches.

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9. A copy of Minas Tirith from "the Lord of the rings" constructed from 420 000 matches and 24,000 small wooden blocks that support huge wooden sculpture.

10. In the nearest plans of Acton is to build a model of the new world trade center in new York from 4 million (!) matches.