RIBBONS

CONCEPT

Ribbons is a toothpick tower.  The original plan was to build a tower resembling the Washington Monument.  After constructing the base, I soon realized that it was much more interesting to add curved toothpick ribbons.  Shown in these photos is the final structure mixed housing baby spider plants. It took approximately four months to construct.

CONSTRUCTION

Around 1700 toothpicks and a fourth of a bottle of Elmer's all purpose glue were used to construct Ribbons.  Each toothpick was stacked one at a time. As the tower grew in height, I made connections across the sculpture.  Some connections were more ambition than others.  Sometimes connections collapsed.  Although there wasn't a whole lot of planning, construction did require some spatial reasoning and balance.