Recycle, reuse, rework
Malcolm Micklethwaite creates original and unique designs with a little bit of glue and a lot of matches.
You know that old saying about not playing with matches? Malcolm Micklethwaite completely ignored the wise words and instead lights them up in the name of art. He creates original and unique designs with a little bit of glue and a lot of matches.
The Honeydew resident works in the IT industry and started match work purely as a hobby. “You’ve seen people build ships out of matches but I wanted to do something different,” he began. “It’s different and I don’t see anyone else doing it. It also keeps me busy because I can’t sit around and do nothing. I’ll sit and watch TV in the evenings and I will be gluing matchsticks.”
He revealed that he had no intention of selling his creations when he first started but he quickly gained attraction covering all kinds of objects including TV trays and pianos that he eventually put them up for sale. Malcolm loves working with his hands and does a lot of woodworking projects around his house. He said he progressed to matches from there. He started his matchstick art in 2003.
“I love it because there is no plan in it. I will work on this tonight and then tomorrow I will do something different. The one on the wall was the very first one I ever did. I glued a row of matches and thought about the next steps. The thing is when you glue this row, no two matches are the same length, so I glue this tonight and then I trim it. All those little trimmed pieces are added into the piece. Nothing goes to waste.”
In one corner of his house Malcolm has a piano that is covered in matchsticks. “That piano was outside a piano shop and had a sign that it was irreparable. It had been in a house fire and it’s more than 150 years old. I took it, stripped it and repaired it. I did the dark ones first and then stained it and covered the rest. My sons told me I can’t sell it because they want to inherit it,” he explained.
The process of creating the masterpieces can be tedious. He said once he has bought the matches, “I take them all out and then I burn them. After that I clean them because there is sulphur on them, and then I glue them. I actually built myself a device to clean the matches because it is a lot of work – it used to take me about three hours to clean 4 000 matches.”
Malcolm said he likes to find old items and recycle them. Among his many talents, he also makes clocks out of old vinyls. “I enjoy everything I do; it’s fun.”
His work can be found on Facebook at Cobra’s Craft Corner
