17
FEBRUARY 1 2008
AMERICANWAY
TouringSchedulefortheArtoftheBrick
>
ThRough FEbRuARY 3:
TheBuilding for Kids, FoxCities Children’sMuseum; Appleton,Wisconsin.
MARCh 2 To AugusT 18:
StamfordMuseum&NatureCenter; Stamford, Connecticut.
AugusT 22 To NovEMbER 30:
AmericanSwedishHistoricalMuseum; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
tional media such as bottle caps and even candy.
However, buildingwith LEGObricks iswhat I’m
best known for.
What is thebiggest pieceyou’ve ever done?
The largest installation I’ve ever builtwas a bill-
board for thefilm
Mr.Magorium’sWonder Empo-
rium
. Itmeasured over 53 feet in length and 15 feet
high and hadwell over half amillion pieces.
how longdoes it take tomakeoneof your
creations?
It depends on the size and subjectmatter. One of
my life-size human forms generally takes three to
fourweeks. The skeleton of aTyrannosaurus rex
I did, whichmeasuredmore than 19 feet, took an
entire summer.
If youmake amistakemidway through, doyou
have topull off all theblocks and start over?
Usually, I can catch themistake before it’s too
damaging and only have to take apart a portion of
the sculpture. Sometimes, though, the sculpturewill
already be glued together, whichmakes itmuch
more difficult to take apart. Fortunately, I’mgood
with a chisel.
Youglueyour LEgos together?
I have to, tomake sure they’ll travel well. Iwould
imagine peoplewouldbe disappointed if they got to
the exhibit only to see a pile of bricks.
so, doyoumapyour structures out onpaper
aheadof time, or doyou just throwabunchof
bricks on thefloor and start playing?
At this point, I see theworld in little rectangles.
Sometimes I catchmyself staring at a building, or
even at a person, andbreakingdownwhat itwould
look like out of LEGOs. As for the process, I just try
to envisionwhat thefinal sculpturewill look like
prior to puttingdown thefirst brick.
howmanyLEgos doyouown?
I have about 1.5
million LEGOpieces inmy inventory at any one
time. And one Lincoln Log. I don’t know how that
got in there.
onmywebsite, Brickartist.com. Soon, Iwas getting
commissions from all over theworld, and I realized
Imight have a LEGO career inmy future.
In2004, you entered—andwon—LEgo’s
search for thenation’s best builder, right?
Yes. The contest involved several rounds of timed
building, inwhich participantswere given a certain
number of bricks and asked to build a themedpiece
within a certain amount of time. [When Iwon],
Iwas offered a positionwith LEGO as amaster
builder. After about sevenmonths, I reallywanted
to be able to pick and choosemy projects, so I left
andbecame an independent artist.
Doyouwork inanyothermediums, likepaint-
ingor sculpture?
I have sculpted out ofmore traditional media such
as clay, wire, andwood, andwith some nontradi-
