Sculptures made of matches

The sculptor Patrick Acton was born in Green County, Iowa, USA, and grew up on a farm near Rippey. Since childhood, Patrick loved tinkering. When his father bought him a bicycle, two weeks later it was powered by a lawn mower. In the yard of their house, on a tree, Patrick built a house with windows and heating. He also found an old Ford pickup truck abandoned in a field and returned it to normal condition. And in 1977, he began experimenting with matches. For him, matchstick sculptures remain a simple hobby that has earned him far more fame than his official job at the consulate.

For this model of Notre Dame, Patrick Acton used 298,000 matches, 2,000 toothpicks, and as much as 55 liters of wood glue.

In 1977, after graduating from college, Patrick built his first model from matches – a mini-replica of the local church. He used matches. Bought at a local store, a bottle of school glue, an ordinary knife, and a piece of sandpaper. 

After nearly 10 years of "building" and cutting off more than 100,000 match heads, Acton called a match company in Ohio and learned that they could be purchased without the heads. This significantly accelerated its work, so the size of each model became larger, as well as the number of matches.

Today, Patrick Acton has more than 60 detailed models of matches, each of which consists of 400 000 – 600 000 matches. It takes 2-3 years to create each one. But Acton starts a new project every year.

Now Acton has given up his boring job at the consulate and is actively working with the "Believe it or Not" program, creating models for various museums.

A model of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry from the Harry Potter books and films. It consists of 600,000 matches.

A replica of Minas Tirith from The Lord of the Rings movie, built from 420,000 matches and 24,000 small wooden blocks that support a huge wooden sculpture.

In the near future, Acton plans to build a model of the new World Trade Center in New York from 4 million (!) matches.