Interview with Nathan Sawaya!

LEGO may be a toy, but it is used for many purposes other than play. among other things, LEGO can be used and appreciated as an art form, and there may not be a more renowned LEGO artist than Nathan Sawaya. 

Sawaya is a full time LEGO professional who builds on commission, has published bestselling LEGO books and displays his life size LEGO creations in galleries worldwide. His artwork has been described as both beautiful and playful, and is internationally adored by adults and children alike. 

Formerly an attorney at law, Nathan jumped into LEGO building and turned his hobby into a career. He is one of the few people to do so successfully, as there are only a handful of Certified Lego Users in the world.

MK:  While most people view LEGO as merely a toy, brick artists like yourself prove that it is clearly more than that. How do you view LEGO?

Nathan Sawaya: LEGO bricks are my medium.  They are a great tool for creating art, and expressing ideas.

MK: The question I'm sure you've answered a million times-- why LEGO?

NS: There are many reasons why I use LEGO, but the foremost reason is that LEGO bricks let me create anything I can imagine.  As an artist, I was determined to elevate this simple childhood toy to a place it has never been before: into the fine art galleries and museums.  And now I have multiple Art of the Brick exhibitions that tour the world.
I also appreciate the cleanliness of the LEGO brick.  The right angles.  The distinct lines.  As so often in life, it is a matter of perspective.  Up close, the shape of the brick is distinctive.  But from a distance, those right angles and distinct lines change to curves.  That is what drew me to the brick.

MK: How long have you been working with LEGO? How has your relationship with the brick grown and evolved over your lifetime?

NS: It was Christmas 1978 when I received my first box of LEGO bricks from my Grandparents. I remember ripping into the package and building a LEGO house right then, oblivious to the rest of Christmas morning. It seems like I have been creating with LEGO ever since that day. Of course, these days my LEGO creations are a little bigger than a toy house.

Playing with LEGO growing up let me build anything I wanted to build. It let my imagination control the playtime. If I wanted to be a rock star that day, I could build myself a guitar. If I wanted to be an astronaut, I could build myself a rocket. It was the perfect tool to lead me into my current life as an artist, where I get to create whatever I want. And get paid for it!

MK: You made a decision most people wouldn't dare consider-- dropping a job as a professional attorney to pursue a career building LEGO. What lead you to this decision?

NS: When I was a lawyer I quickly came to realize I was more comfortable sitting on the floor creating sculptures than I was sitting in a boardroom negotiating contracts.  My personal search for overall happiness paved the way to becoming a fulltime working artist.

MK: What advice would you have for somebody who is considering turning their hobby into a profession?

Follow your passion.  I also think it's a good idea to pay off your student loans first.



MK: Are there any legal issues with using a product such as LEGO as an art form? If so, what were they and how were they handled?

I have a great business relationship with LEGO.  But I still have to buy all of my bricks.

MK: The LEGO brick is great for a lot of reasons. What is your favorite thing about working with bricks as opposed to another medium of art?

I like using the bricks as a medium because I enjoy seeing people’s reactions to artwork created from something with which they are familiar.  Everyone can relate to it since it is a toy that many children have at home.  People can appreciate a marble statue at a museum, but when they go home that night, it is very doubtful they will have a slab of marble they can start chipping away at.  But people have LEGO bricks, and when they go home after seeing my exhibitions, they are inspired to grab their own bricks and start creating.

MK: What some advantages and disadvantages to using LEGO as a medium?

It can be used to create anything you can imagine.  However, when using a rigid medium, there are limitations to blending of colors.  There is a finite color palette which must be respected.

MK: If you don't mind, could you describe the process behind building your LEGO sculptures?

My process is like any artist.  I get most excited by the initial idea and design phase.  The process in the middle of construction usually sucks and I complain a lot.  I almost always have renewed excited again near the end of the creative period.  There is a lot of sketching, and since I glue my sculptures together, there is also chiseling if there's a mistake.

10. What math (if any) is involved in turning small plastic cubes into large organic shapes?

The same type of mathematics that architects and engineers use as they are creating and building.

11. Is there anything in particular that you want people to take away from your art when they view it? What are you trying to say?

The fundamental purpose to my art is to captivate people for as long as I can keep their attention.  I strive to create artwork that is interesting and that is unlike anything they have seen before.  In the end, I hope they are inspired to create on their own.

The Brick Bible

A while back I got two really awesome books as a birthday gift: The Old Testament and the New Testament of the Brick Bible!

While I may not be much of a religious person, I fell in love with the books as soon as I saw them. Written and illustrated by "Reverend"Brendan Powell Smith, the Brick Bible is exactly what it sounds like: the stories of both testaments of the holy bible (which, if you didn't already know, is a pretty important book to a lot of people) illustrated entirely using LEGO. 

Smith began illustrating stories from the book of genesis in 2001, and published his works online. The stories are told using images of LEGO dioramas Smith created using bricks from his own creation. I remember seeing his religious LEGO creations online a long time ago, and being confused, intrigued and amazed by them. His "style" has definitely improved since he began, as almost every image in the books are full of color and detail. Smith's illustrations are also beautiful due to the cleverness he uses when working with lego-- a skill that has visibly improved for smith over the past decade. On almost every page I'm wowed by another creative use of LEGO bricks to portray the biblical scenes. 

Brendan Powell Smith doesn't shy away from depicting any
part of the bible, including sex, murder, birth, death, rape,
burning in hell, and everything else!

Just like Zbigniew Liberia's Konzentrationslager (A work of contemporary art that depicts a concentration camp built from LEGO bricks), there is a strong juxtaposition in Smith's illustrations of the bible. Smith obviously felt no need to censor the bible despite his depiction using an undeniably childish medium, so there are plenty scenes of rape, death, plague and all that other fun stuff that can be found in the bible. In fact, nothing is left out, or even altered, as Smiths storytelling is about as literal as it gets. 

Smith may be literal with his storytelling, but he certainly gets creative with his depiction and visual interpretation of the subject matter. When depicting the deadly sins, such as greed, Smith shows happy LEGO men driving little red LEGO sports cars. All LEGO elements are used (and only a few are modified). 

It seems that throughout Smith's venture into the world of LEGO storytelling, he has become more than just a reverend, and somewhat of an artist. His works are are technical, clever, and beautiful that they are displayed at galleries. I would say that there is undoubtedly an artistic nature to taking a subject -- especially one as delicate and precious as the holy scripture-- and illustrating it using LEGO. There is a lot of audacity in Smith's work, which makes him even more of an artist. 

I would recommend checking out Smith's website, and definitely taking a look at the Brick Bible (as well as some of his other works, which depict presidential assassinations, among other things). You don't need to be a religious person to appreciate the level of craft, creativity, audacity and storytelling that Smith exhibits in all of his works. 

Interview with Joe Meno

There are probably few people out there who have more experience within the LEGO community as Joe Meno. 

Joe has been a central figure in LEGO community for well over a decade. He publishes the AFOL (Adult Fans of LEGO) magazine BrickJournal, and co-wrote Cult of LEGO, which is a great book that I have used as a reference for my project so far. 

On top of being a writer/editor/publisher, Meno is also an accomplished LEGO builder who displays his creations at LEGO events, as well as online. 

Images of Joe's creations, as well as posts regarding all different sorts of LEGO, can be found on his personal blog.

Milo Krimstein: Can you tell me a little bit about who you are, and what is your background in the LEGO community? 

Joe Meno: I am a former graphic designer who became a magazine editor for the LEGO hobby. Basically, I moved my profession to my hobby. I got back into LEGO building in 1999, when I got a job at the LEGO Imagination Center in Orlando, Florida. I didn’t last that long in that job, but I discovered the online LEGO community and eBay soon after, which pretty much doomed me :-). From that beginning, I got involved in the community by first attending conventions then volunteering for events and finally leading a couple. Somewhere in there, I kept on building and began thinking about doing a magazine, which was launched online in 2005 and printed two years later. Because of my activities, I have participated in a few LEGO projects, including set design and beta testing of LEGO software.

Meno's LEGO publication,
BrickJournal. 

MK:  What kind of a role would you say that you play in the LEGO community?

JM: My role now is mostly a journalist and advisor. My building is still known, but nowhere as much as the magazine.

MK: Is LEGO a toy, or is it more than a toy? How and why?

JM: It’s more than a toy - it’s a medium. While childish can play with the brick, adults can use the brick as an art medium or prototyping material, for starters. The simple building system makes building accessible to those ‘non-creative’ builders who are engineers or math-based. A LEGO set can make a 2-D mosaic, a 3-D model, or a functioning robot, so saying that LEGO is just a toy is simplistic.

Students use LEGO Mindstorms in the
First Lego League. 

MK: In what ways can and/or do you use LEGO as a tool for education?

JM: I use the MINDSTORMS system for robotics classes in the summer and at school and help the same school with FIRST LEGO League. LEGO building is also used for storytelling by having kids build something and then talking about it afterwards.

MK: How has LEGO, and the culture surrounding LEGO, evolved from the past to the present?

JM: LEGO has progressed from bricks to wheels to figures to machines to computers….the culture has progressed from exclusively play to becoming a form of expression to adults and children.

MK: What does LEGO represent in our culture? 

JM: Childhood on one level and creativity on another.

MK: What might the future hold for LEGO and the LEGO community?

JM: Tough one - LEGO is the best building brick out there now and the current challengers are not very strong. The biggest challenge may be coming from 3-D printing: why buy sets if you can make your own parts? How LEGO deals with that will determine how the community goes. 

Interview with Rocco Buttliere

LEGO World Financial Center (NYC)

Rocco with his models at
Brickworld, Chicago

Rocco Buttliere builds LEGO models that are so elaborately detailed and articulate that many people don't realize the models are built from the kids toy until they take a closer look.

Only a few years older than myself, Rocco has undeniably mastered the craft of recreating architectural skyscrapers and landmarks using any and all of the LEGO elements that exist. He uses his bricks both wisely and creatively, and seems to produce a new Chicago skyscraper model every few months. Pictures of all of his LEGO creations can be found here. (I highly suggest taking a look: there are some really extraordinary techniques to appreciate in his builds).

By the way, I should note that all of his models are built on the same scale: 1:650

Trump International Hotel & Tower next
to the Wrigley Building

MK: First of all, tell me a little bit about yourself and your background with using LEGO.

RB: I am currently a second year architecture student at Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago.  Having grown up in Buffalo Grove, just northwest of the city, I have always loved the downtown area and all the excitement it has to offer.  I started building LEGO sets at the age of six, and slowly worked my way beyond building just the sets.  When I was fourteen, around the time I started to show an interest in architecture, I began building skyscrapers out of LEGO as a personal hobby.

MK: Why do you work with LEGO to recreate skyscrapers and landmarks? What are advantages, challenges, and benefits of working with LEGO as opposed to other mediums?

Chicago Board of Trade

RB: I really started to build skyscrapers and landmarks after I had built some of the larger sets LEGO had to offer such as the Eiffel Tower and Taj Mahal.  When I built my first skyscraper model, which was the Sears Tower, I saw it as a way to make a comparable landmark model at a reasonable scale, while serving as a tribute to my own locale.  The main benefit of working with LEGO as a medium is that it gives each model I make a more sentimental quality.  LEGO itself is an undeniably more innocent medium than, say, oil paint or plaster.  The challenge and enjoyment I find it in, however, is that I can take this medium and use it in such a way that can be used to visually represent an existing structure.  Enough so as to be possibly deceptive to an unknowing person that the model is actually made of LEGO.

MK: What have you learned from LEGO? What can others learn from LEGO? Can you apply any of the knowledge you may have gained from working with LEGO to anything other than LEGO building?

Building things at such a small scale, for me, can teach many things that are applicable to a wide variety of activities or areas of study.  For instance, figuring out how to make the interior of a model support the exterior finish is not unlike the way in which engineers discover new techniques and methods of construction.  

Chase Tower (Chicago)

MK: Your models are extremely technical, and I hear you are studying architecture at Illinois Institute of Technology. Has LEGO shaped who you are as a thinker and creator? If so, how? Did construction toys such as LEGO play a role in igniting your passion for architecture?

RB: LEGO has most definitely shaped the way I think.  I would venture so far as to say that it's really similar to how it's easier to learn new languages when starting at a young age.  I think starting out so early and keeping that going for the majority of my life has definitely made me think more technically and creatively.  

MK: Do you consider yourself a part of a LEGO community? If so, how has being a part of that community helped you grow as a builder?

RB: I definitely consider myself as part of the LEGO community.  I'm a member of the Kenosha LEGO Users Group (KLUG) and the Chicago Area LUG (ChiLUG), and I regularly attend Brickworld Chicago in June, not to mention I even worked at a LEGO Store for the holiday season a few years ago.  Putting yourself out there with other people who build is really beneficial to you as a builder.  Not only do you see other builders' techniques and building methods, but you're able to get feedback on your own methods as well.

(from left) One Prudential Plaza, Two Prudential Plaza,
Aon Center, Aqua, and the Blue Cross Blue Shield tower