Toothpicks
This blog post is generously provided in kind by Sheila Bock. The Double Down blog is also supported by Nevada Humanities’ donors.
By Sheila Bock
On a shelf in my living room in Las Vegas, Nevada, there is a model of the train station in Skagen, Denmark. It was a gift given to me by my dad, Russ Bock, who built it as a memento, of sorts, of the time I spent studying abroad in Denmark when I was in college. The attention to detail in this model is impressive, but perhaps what makes it especially noteworthy is that it is made entirely out of toothpicks.
A toothpick model of the train station in Skagen, Denmark, completed in 2004. Photograph courtesy of Sheila Bock.
Building things out of toothpicks is a hobby that captured my dad’s attention in 1967, when he was a college student trying to think of a special Christmas gift he could give to the young woman he met and befriended the previous summer — the woman who would eventually become his wife and my mom. He wanted to give her something unique, so as an engineering student on a budget, he decided to try putting his engineering skills to use to design and build a miniature rocking chair from toothpicks.
My dad’s first toothpick creation, a rocking chair he made in 1967. Photograph courtesy of Sheila Bock.
Enjoying both the challenge of the process and his satisfaction at the outcome, he moved on to different projects to see if he could do them, including a miniature bicycle, a wishing well, a stagecoach, and a baby grand piano (another gift for my mom, who is a talented pianist). Over time, his primary interest, at least in the domain of his toothpick creations, turned to buildings: buildings he visited (e.g, Mission Dolores in San Francisco, California; George Washington’s house, Mt. Vernon, in Virginia), buildings that were personally meaningful to him (e.g., the house he lives in, his church), buildings that he found architecturally impressive (e.g., Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello), and buildings that were connected to people he admired (e.g., his current project is Greenway, the home of the author Agatha Christie). As he approaches his seventy-eighth birthday this September, he has been consistently working on making something out of toothpicks for almost sixty years. To date, he has completed over thirty toothpick creations.
This is not a hobby that has required much financial investment, which is a big reason he has found it so enjoyable over the years. For each creation, he has needed a pencil and paper, a ruler, toothpicks, scissors, sandpaper, and paint. Sometimes the architectural details of the building require additional supplies, such as plastic straws to help create the shape of tiles on a rooftop or a wiffle ball to help create the shape of a dome.
My dad working on his latest toothpick creation: Agatha Christie’s Greenway. Photograph courtesy of Sheila Bock.
Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, which my dad started in 2007 and completed in 2009. Photo courtesy of Sheila Bock.
“The attention to detail in this model is impressive, but perhaps what makes it especially noteworthy is that it is made entirely out of toothpicks. ”
He has also never been in a rush to finish a project. Dedicating no more than thirty minutes per day to the endeavor, a single project might take multiple years to complete. While he is extremely proud of each creation once it is done, the pleasure for him comes as much from the process as the product.
Outside of the ones he has gifted to me and my sister, the majority of his creations are on display throughout my parents’ home, often sharing shelves with family photos. While the individual creations are impressive pieces of folk art in their own right, as a collection they serve as a material archive of the life of their creator: his character traits (e.g., patience, meticulous attention to detail, frugality, seeing value ins making time for pleasurable activities outside of work and family responsibilities), relationships that are important to him, authors he has loved (as reading is another activity he takes great pleasure in), and the places he has visited and enjoyed during his travels. This collection – featuring the transformation of unremarkable toothpicks into aesthetically impressive and personally meaningful pieces of art – also makes visible, in material form, a life well-lived.
Sheila Bock is a folklorist and professor in the Department of Interdisciplinary, Gender, and Ethnic Studies at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. After trying to make her own toothpick house when she was in elementary school, she found that she lacked the patience and meticulous attention to detail necessary for the craft.