A Portion of Scott Weaver's Huge Kinetic Toothpick Sculpture of San Francisco

A skillful artist can make amazing things out of toothpicks and glue.  Self-taught Wayne Kusy builds ships like the Titanic and Lusitania.  His twenty-five feet long model of the Queen Mary required 814,000 toothpicks and nineteen gallons of wood glue.  Patrick Acton’s representational work with matchsticks earned his sculpture gallery the title of “Iowa Tourism’s Attraction of the Year” in 2007 (check out his timely “Hogwarts” piece).  And UK artist David Mach uses the business end of matchsticks to create a uniquely colorful take on this art form.

Each of these artists pulls together small scraps to make a much larger united whole.  And apparently, that’s what San Francisco novelist Matt Stewart is doing as he publishes what he claims to be the first novel released 140 characters at a time through Twitter.

“The French Revolution” will require upwards of 3,700 tweets to get the entire book out, an effort that has earned him invaluable press for a writer struggling to get his work noticed.  But only the novelty of the action merits coverage; in the end, 3,700 tweets do not aggregate into one piece in the same powerful way that 814,000 toothpicks aggregate into a twenty-five foot sculpture.  There is no final product, nothing to hold, nothing to skim, nothing to quickly re-read to refresh your take on a character, at least, not without a great deal of cutting and pasting.

So the story here is not that publishers have discovered a new manner to distribute their work.  Instead, it is yet another example of Clay Shirky’s theme of amateur empowerment through reducing the traditional cost of distribution, with the web usurping the role of the printing press for little to no transactional cost to Mr. Stewart.

Remarkable?  Yes, rather.  Sustainable?  Not really.

by Dennis Ryan, CCO, Element 79

Patrick Acton é o nome deste brilhante escultor. Ele faz estes monumentos utilizando epenas palitos! Entre suas criações está a fabulosa Minas Tirith diretamente da Terra Média e a escola de magia e bruxaria de Hogwarts.

A cidade dos Reis de “O senhor dos Anéis” ainda não está pronta, Acton a está montando desde 2007! Claro que para os nerds, está é sua obra mais magnífica, porém, Patrick possui outras belíssimas esculturas no currículo, como a estação de lançamento da NASA e a catedral de Notre Dame. Você pode visualizar mais imagens clicando aqui.

Via NSN.

There are a lot of seriously creative people on this rock.  Some have a nack for pumpkin carving, while others like to build things with matchsticks.  Patrick Acton happens to be one of the latter, and is currently embarking on a project of epic proportions.  He has decided to craft a replica of Minas Tirith from J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings Trilogy, putting all haters to shame in the process.

I can’t even imagine how many matchsticks this is taking, but I do know that this trumps my popsicle-stick bird house from back in the day.  Only by a bit though.

His next project should totally be something even more rediculous.  Maybe a matchstick Stay-Puffed Marshmallow Man?  After it’s done, he can burn it so it looks like the real thing! (sans humungo mallow mess to clean up after)

Wow…click the picture to go to the gallery for the all the different models this guy has created.  The Hogwarts one is pretty awesome too.

Impressively intricate.

A belíssima arte de Patrick Acton, feita com palitos de fósforo.

By Mell

Clique em “more” para ver todas as imagens:

Escola Hogwarts (Harry Potter) – Clique para ampliar

Navio de Batalha U.S.S. Iowa (800 horas e quase 80.000 palitos)

Pinocchio

Patrick está construindo um modelo de MinasTirith da trilogia O Senhor dos anéis e espera concluí-la em 2009, veja:

Whether you’re a fan of J.R.R. Tolkien’s ‘Lord of the Rings’ trilogy, or not.. you’ve gotta appreciate it when someone comes along and creates a marvel quite like this. Patrick Acton is in the process of creating the City of Kings, ‘Minas Tirith’ out of nothing but matchsticks! My jaw dropped in awe when I saw the photo. Take a look for yourself, and click on the photo to check out the rest of the photos. Enjoy!

My goodness… My matches!