80 Miles of Toothpicks #WordlessWednesday

Last week, we visited the Eastview Mall in Victor, New York (a suburb of Rochester) and saw this display.

The Roman coliseum.   What a nice model, you'd say.

Then, there is the Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque, formerly the Church of the Holy Wisdom, in Istanbul. It's newer than the Roman coliseum but another magnificent structure.

What if I told you these structures, and others on display, are built out of toothpicks, in a 1:164 scale?

The artist, Stan Munro, was once a TV news reporter in Rochester, New York, but quit his job to devote himself to the craft of building with toothpicks.  How he got started is quite the story - his wife, who had kidney disease, needed dialysis five times a week and he would build the toothpick structures to help pass the time.

The 80 million toothpicks refer to the Great Wall of China, which would take 80 million toothpicks to build and would stretch from Rochester, New York, to Syracuse, New York.  Right now, some of his works are split between three venues - one in Rochester, one in the Eastview Mall in his present hometown of Victor, and one at a science museum in Syracuse.

Stan is looking for a museum to house his entire Toothpick World.  Do you know of one?

And that's it!  Stan has a website called Toothpick World if you want to learn more.

 

Joining Sandee at Comedy Plus for her #WordlessWednesday