The lighthouse, long a symbol of the rugged Maine coast, has been depicted in many art forms.

Paul Bruce Jalbert is one of those who have attempted to capture the mystique of the lighthouse in his medium.

“If you love the ocean, you love lighthouses,” the Bar Harbor man explained. “It’s the history behind them. It’d be tremendous to live in a lighthouse.”

Jalbert employs a rare method of constructing lighthouses – out of toothpicks. Over the past decade, he has built a number of lighthouses, mostly using his own creativity as a foundation.

“I work from photos and my own imagination, not from architectural blueprints,” he said.

Jalbert uses a photo album to show off his past works. That’s because he donates many of his completed models to be sold by charitable organizations.

“I could never get the money that my time is worth,” said Jalbert, who runs the Ellsworth waste-transfer station for Sawyer Environmental Services.

“I donate it to a charity, and see what they can do with it.” Among the past beneficiaries of Jalbert’s work are the Island Institute, the New England Lighthouse Foundation, the Mount Desert Island YMCA, the Bangor Public Library and the Muscular Dystrophy Association telethon. The last lighthouse he built was auctioned off by College of the Atlantic for $5,000.

The self-proclaimed “dump ranger” recently donated two models – a replica of St. Saviour’s Episcopal Church in Bar Harbor and a lighthouse of his own creation – to Friends of Acadia. The pair, which took him two years to make, will be auctioned off at a silent auction at 6:30 p.m. Aug. 12 at Acadia’s Wildwood Stables in Seal Harbor.

The St. Saviour’s piece is especially detailed, with modeling grass, balsa wood headstones and even the Civil War-era statue.

“I think it’s one of the most beautiful churches I’ve ever seen,” Jalbert said.

Jalbert first started working with toothpicks after a shop accident 10 years ago. After having his knee operated on twice, he was on crutches for two months.

“I got bored watching TV, so I asked [his wife] Judy to buy me some toothpicks and glue,” he recalled.

He started by making a high-diving board for his son, then a train for a frie retired from the New York-New Haven railroad. A model of the “Waltons” house from the popular ’70s TV show sits on his kitchen table.

His tools are simple – toothpicks, glue, fingernail clippers and tweezers.

He actually has tapped into a lifetime supply of toothpicks. He showed one model to a representative of Guilford Manufacturing, and was sent a case of 2,500-toothpick boxes, in exchange for the company using the model at trade shows to exhibit the possibilities of toothpicks. He’s been promised more as needed.

He starts with a cardboard frame for the structure, cross-braced inside with toothpicks. To crate the walls, he wraps toothpicks around a socket from a socket-wrench set, then covers it with tacky glue. When the panels start to dry, he sets the sockets on top of the toothpicks, to keep them flat.

After the walls have been completed, Jalbert then constructs the porches, windows, and door frames and railings from toothpicks. The windows themselves are made out of nylon screening covering brass. He uses birch laminate for trim. The pebbles he employs come from his own yard.

Then comes the roof, the most time-consuming part of the process. He uses the backs of photo albums for the roofs. He cuts the eighth-inch-long shingles from toothpicks with nail clippers, and places up to 10,000 on a single roof. He dips each in a puddle of glue, then applies them to the roof with tweezers.

Jalbert is now in the midst of recreating Mount Desert Rock. A future dream is to construct a replica of the Portland Head Light.

“The more I do this, the bigger they get,” he noted.

Jalbert spends 20 to 25 hours a week on his hobby, and finds the painstaking work therapeutic.

“I work with no timetable,” he said. “I do this because I enjoy doing this. I don’t rush anything. To me, it’s very relaxing.”