For most of us, LEGO sets are little more than a child's toy. But for Nathan Sawaya, they're an interlocking plastic canvas, an artistic medium of immeasurable potential and capable of transforming into any shape imaginable. Art of the Brick: A Life in LEGO showcases some of Sawaya's most ambitious projects—this mammoth T-Rex skeleton, for example—and the inspirations behind them. The following is an excerpt from the book. There are two kinds of teachers: the kind that fill you with so much quail shot that you can't move, and the kind that just gives you a little prod behind and you jump to the skies. I had my first solo show in April 2007. It was at the Lancaster Museum of Art, in the rural and Amish town in central Pennsylvania. At the time the museum contacted me, I thought, "Wow, what an honor," with the simultaneous thought that it would likely also be my last solo show. It was early in my career, and I hadn't yet built up confidence in what I was doing. I didn't know what to expect, and I was a nervous wreck.
We had this whole sequence planned where my family was going to fly in and see the show first at 5 pm before it opened to the public at 6 pm. Since I never expected to do another solo show, I called all my friends and invited them. So they were all there, but I never thought anyone else would come. At about noon that day, the director of the museum called and said, "You're not going to be happy, but I've started letting people in. It's freezing outside, and they're queued up around the corner."Usually the gallery saw 35,000 visitors in a year, but my show had 25,000 in six weeks. The Amish came, with their buggies and beards. What blew me away most of all was that these nine-year-olds came walking through. The show drew in many families and people who'd never come to an art museum before. Kids were asking me for autographs in Lancaster cafés . . . it was bizarre. I was so overwhelmed by the reaction to the show that I wanted to give something back to the kids. So, in May of that year, I started building Dinosaur.
I began creating a skeleton, something like you might find in a natural-history museum. I was lucky in that I had some serious experience in the subject. I had a middle school science teacher named Al James—Mr. James, at the time—who was an amazing teacher and would always go the extra mile. He would take us on field trips—not to the zoo or the other typical sites, but all the way to a cave in the mountains, for days. He'd mention offhand, "Oh, and by the way there are bats, so you've got to bring a tarp with you so you don't get bat guano all over you while you're sleeping." That's stuff that changes your life as an eighth grader. One of Mr. James's more grotesque assignments prepared me for Dinosaur. He asked all of his students to find a dead animal, then strip its flesh and reconstruct its skeleton. I'd found a dead beaver by the side of the road, so that became my project. Do you know how to strip the skin and flesh off a beaver? You've got to boil it on your mother's stove top.
So I did that. Luckily, I had very supportive parents. I went along with Mr. James, in the summer of '88, to the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology on a summer course. Most of my job was reconstructing a skeleton from a dead California sea lion for a museum. The Institute had a walk-in freezer, like a butcher's freezer, and inside there was a whale carcass, a great white shark, and a few sea lions. Now, sea lions are pretty big, and they're covered in blubber, which you've got to cut off with a chainsaw. (You could euphemistically call this step a dirty job.) Then you've got to boil the body in giant cauldrons so all the flesh falls off, and finally you've got to piece all the bones together again to make the skeleton. That summer, I completed the reconstruction of the sea lion's skeleton, and I also did a brown pelican. I hope they're still in natural-history museums somewhere. So when it came to Dinosaur, I knew what it took to create a skeleton. It took me about three months to do Dinosaur—about the same time it took me to do the sea lion!
Insane LegoEpic LegoAwesome Legos9 InsaneVolvo CarLego VolvoLego VolkswagonBrick CarLego BrickForwardI cant believe someone could have this much patience to build this whole carIt could be the biggest bargain on the property market: a two-storey house that’s being given away for nothing. The only drawback is that this des res is made entirely out of Lego – and you’ll have to find somewhere to put it.Top Gear presenter James May has just built the world’s first full-size Lego house – including a working toilet, hot shower and a very uncomfortable bed – using 3.3million plastic bricks. Toy storeys: James May and 1,000 helpers built the 20ft-tall Lego house on a wine estate in Surrey Stripe me: A close up of the fully functional house, which was built using 3.3million differently coloured bricks About 1,000 volunteers built the 20ft-tall house in Denbies Wine Estate in Dorking, Surrey – but now the vineyard needs the land back toIf no one collects it by 8am on Tuesday, it will be
hacked to bits with chainsaws. May says Legoland reneged on a deal to take it to their theme park in Windsor, Berkshire, after deciding it would be too expensive to move. Meanwhile, miffed Legoland managers criticised May for building the house without their help.May said: ‘I’m very unhappy about it. I feel as if I’m having my arm twisted into saying “knock it down”. Blocked sink: The bathroom with a working taps and basin made from Lego Cosy: James in the bedroom - and you'll never guess what he made the bed, pillows and slippers from! Purrfect: The home even comes with its own cat ‘Legoland only told us on Thursday they were not going to take it. Block head: The TV presenter built the house for his forthcoming BBC show, James May Toy Stories 'Knocking it down is just wrong on every level. really lovely thing – it would break the hearts of the 1,000 people who worked like dogs to build it.’ May believes that an art gallery, a children’s home or a wealthy
private collector might be interested in the house. entrepreneurs hoping to make money from it would face legal problems as Legoland has an exclusive licence to use the plastic bricks as a public Lego has also banned May from dismantling the structure and giving away the bricks, which the company donated for his forthcoming BBC show James May’s Toy Stories. ‘It would dilute Lego’s sales – we can only give them to charity,’ May said. May slept in the house on Friday night, on ‘the most uncomfortable bed I’ve ever slept in’ – when he also discovered the house was not waterproof. Martin Williams, marketing director of Legoland Windsor, said: ‘We’re disappointed we were not consulted as our model-makers could have advised on building a movable structure. ‘In our opinion, the only way to move the Lego house now is to cut into it, which would compromise the structural integrity and present us with
Plastic fantastic: James in the multi-coloured hallway Building blocks: James even used Lego to make kitchen utensils, including a toaster, whisk, bread bin and iron Daily Block: The home, which is unwanted by Legoland, also includes reading material 'We considered all the options but due to timings, logistics and planning permission, we have decided it would not be viable to move the structure to the park.’Earlier this year the TV presenter made his debut in the Chelsea Flower show with a garden made entirely out of plasticine. in Plasticine boasted palm trees, bushes, a vegetable patch, grapevine, lawn, rockery and pond and featured two and a half tonnes of plasticine in 24 different colours.The 46-year-old claimed his effort is the biggest and most complex plasticine model ever made. He produced the the garden as part of his BBC 2 series James May's Toy Stories, where he aimed to 'get kids out of their bedrooms and away from their Playstations'.