Well, I'd worked with other media over the years. I'd done sculpture out of clay and wire, and it was just one day I thought back to my childhood about playing with Lego bricks, and I thought, I wonder if I can create art out of Lego so I started experimenting with it, and really found I enjoyed using it as a medium. And then realized people really enjoyed seeing my art made out of Lego, because it made the art very accessible, right? It could connect to that type of art because they were so familiar with the toy.
You know, you said you thought back to your childhood. Were you somebody that played with Legos all the time as a kid,
Yeah, I had Lego bricks as a child. I got my first set, I think, when I was, like, five years old, and I had parents who really encouraged creativity, so they allowed me to have like, this big, 36 square foot Lego City when I was growing up. So it was something I could go and play with. As you know, let really my creative juices flow. But then, as I grew up and went in different directions, I actually became a lawyer for a while. So it was, it took some time before I came back to Lego. And when I came back to it, it was as an art medium.
So when did you come back to it?
Well, I started playing around with it. When I was a lawyer. I would come home after long days at the law firm, and I would need some sort of creative outlet, and sometimes I would paint, and sometimes I would draw, and sometimes I would sculpt. And it was around then where and I just, you know, started experimenting with Lego. I put a little website together, and I started getting interest and was selling works, and realized, wow, there's really something to this. So eventually, left the law firm and had my first solo art exhibition in 2007
I think 2007 was when you're one of your more famous pieces. "Yellow" came out. Is that right?
Yeah, it was right then. It was one of my pieces that has really defined my career. A lot of people reach out to me about "Yellow" it's this figure kind of tearing its chest open, and all these yellow Lego bricks are spilling out. I think more people contact me about that piece than any other piece I've done. So, it's become rather iconic. But for me, it's, it's just one of those signature pieces where I've, I've taken the human form created out of this child's toy and tried to put some emotion into it.
Yeah, I wanted to ask you about, you know, yellow and kind of that motif of of, you know, a chest being open and then something spilling out of it, or coming out of it. I've seen that in a few of your pieces that I that I saw over the internet. Is there anything to that? What are you trying to accomplish with that motif?
Well, I think for me, it's about transition and giving everything you have. It's about, you know, your soul spilling out almost. I think a lot of my pieces do focus on metamorphosis and change and transition, because I've gone through many changes in my life. You know, I've gone from some very dark places to where I'm at now. And, you know, I think creating, I think creating art is something that really got me through those, those dark places and and so, yeah, I use that motif a lot because, you know, I'm just relying on my own personal journey.
Would you be willing to speak a little bit about some of those dark places that you've been to?
Well, you know, I suffer from depression, and so some of my works have really focused on on that. I have found that when I'm in, you know, a depressed place, sometimes the best thing I can do is is create art. And not everything I create in those moments is something you're going to see in an exhibition, but it is kind of a way to pull me out of things. I think I go into a bit of a trance when I'm working. I just have music playing in the background. It's just me alone in the studio, and I'm just working with the bricks trying to create something. So it's a slow, methodical, sometimes tedious process, but for me, it really helps me get through things.
Yeah, and I wanted to talk about your process a little bit too. What does that look like? Is it something where, you know, you're just sitting and an image pops in your head and you kind of just start working on it, or is it just you take a bunch of Legos, and as you go, you just build, and it kind of metamorphosizes into into something new?
"Well, it depends on the piece, right? Like, sometimes I'm focusing on something the world's never seen before, which is just coming from my mind, but some other times I might be replicating, say, a famous work of art. So it all starts with that idea. Where does that idea come from? It's hard to say. Fortunately, having multiple art exhibitions touring these days, I get to travel a lot. I use that travel experience for inspiration, because I meet new people, experience different cultures, go to different locations, I take that and try and come up with new pieces. Once I have that new idea, it's it's a process of just kind of maybe planning it out in my mind, like I want to see that final piece in my mind before I even put down that first brick. And then it's just a slow process of brick by brick. Now, part of my process is that I glue each individual brick into place as I go. It's because, because my exhibitions travel, I want to make sure the pieces stay together. So there is this, the slow, slow process of gluing each brick together, which means, you know, if I make a mistake, I have to use a hammer and chisel to tear it apart. So you definitely, you definitely have to have patience for this job."
Do you ever think about going back to being a lawyer?
No, no, I let my legal license expire. I didn't want that safety net.
What do you mean, you didn't want that safety net?
Well, once I left the law firm, and, you know, decided that this is what I was going to do, I'm going to be an artist full time, I didn't want to fall back on becoming a lawyer, so I let my legal license expire, so that if I failed at being an artist, I wouldn't have that again. Safety net to fall into. I would just have to find another way to succeed.
Do you remember what your first Lego set you ever got was?
"Yeah, yeah. I remember my first leg set. It was a universal building set. I think it was number 114, and it was just a random selection of bricks, you know, had some doors, some windows, some tires, so you could build whatever you could imagine. I think the first thing I built was a little house, and it was just one of those things where I was, like, really, really into into that, that toy, really into the medium, really thought, wow, you could build whatever you want to with this. And of course, that would play out throughout my career."
And so what can people expect to see when they come to the exhibit in Schenectady this week?
"So the art of the brick has quite a few different works. You're going to see pieces from all along my entire career path. You're going to see some very simplistic representational pieces from early on in my career, when I was a lawyer and I was just still learning how to use Lego bricks. So maybe, like an apple, can I build an apple out of Lego bricks? Can I build an apple the size of basketball out of Lego bricks? So there's some experiments that are very early on. But then you'll go throughout the exhibition, and you'll see some of my bigger, more, more emotional pieces. You see a lot of original works human forms, like "Yellow," as we talked about earlier. You're going to see some replicas from art history. You're going to see a giant dinosaur skeleton that's over 20 feet long and uses over 80,000 bricks. So it's a lot of different stuff from throughout my career. And there's, there's probably something for the whole family."
Is there any kind of recent Lego set that you've purchased that you're building now?
"Yeah. What else have I been building lately? I did the I did the what do you call it the vending machine? Do you know what I'm talking about? The Lego vending machine?"
I don't think so.
"Okay, what have I recently purchased? Well, you know, I always have a few Star Wars sets that I need to build. So I'm sure there'll be a new Star Wars set that I need to take on very soon. And that's, that's, you know, it's fun to actually build the sets from time to time. Because, again, it's almost fun. It's very fun to build someone else's instructions and just, you know, it's like therapeutic to just, okay, I can just follow these instructions and create what they've come up with."
Yeah, that's kind of interesting that you bring that up. I mean, is it like, you know, making the sculptures, I would imagine that at some point it just must feel like work. And then do you go back to just building like the the Legos, the LEGO sets that have their instructions, that are already kind of pre made, to kind of relax a little bit? Or am I off on that?
"No, to a point you were right. You know, I'm still a fan of the toy. I like to know what they're working on, what they're building, and so I still build the sets. From time to time, people still give me LEGO sets for like, birthday gifts, which is kind of hysterical, because I have over 10 million Lego bricks in the studio, but, but, yeah, I still build the sets because it's it. It is therapeutic. It is kind of relaxing to sit and just build whatever the company came up with."
All right, now that's all I got for you. Is there anything else that you want to say or mention about the the exhibit or your process, or anything else that we talked about that I haven't asked you about?
"I think we're good. Jesse, this is great. This is thank you for being easy to work with."
Yeah. Thank you. Have a great day. Nathan.
