San Francisco Toothpicks Sculpture

In 1974, Scott Weaver began his work on Rolling through the Bay - world’s largest kinetic structure, made entirely from toothpicks and glue. Mr. Weaver  started sculpting in toothpicks very early in life, and his structures were leaning for big even then. First works, abstract forms he made since the age of 8, were between 2 and 4 feet tall. Being a born San Franciscan, he started work on Rolling through the Bay, with representations of The Golden Gate and Lombard Street to eventually add almost every one of the city’s landmark, in over 100 000 toothpicks and more than 3000 working hours. The kinetic part of the structure are tours of the city, available to table-tennis balls, directed through narrow channels, from the top to the base of the structure. To make things even more interesting, he constructed various particular objects within the sculpture, out of toothpicks from around the world. There are toothpicks from Morocco, Kenya, Germany and Italy, and the ones Mr. Weaver used for the Palace of Fine Arts were thrown at his wedding, instead of confetti.

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