Making art, one Lego brick at a time
Those who saw this year’s Oscar telecast may recall the performance of Everything Is Awesome, the boisterous, nominated theme song from The Lego Movie. As Tegan and Sara sang (along with rapping members of the Lonely Island comedy group), a phalanx of cowboy-costumed performers fanned out into the audience, handing out 20 fake Academy Award statuettes — each one made entirely of 500 Lego bricks — to such celebrities as Oprah Winfrey and Steve Carell.
It’s not likely that many people would have known the name of the guy who designed and built those faux Oscars. But Nathan Sawaya, who works exclusively in little plastic bricks, commands thousands of dollars for his pieces. The successful contemporary artist also is one of the subjects in A Lego Brickumentary, a documentary celebrating the oddball creative community that has grown around Lego.
A former corporate lawyer, the 42-year-old Sawaya quit his day job in 2004, to pursue what was then a hobby. Today, Sawaya divides his time between studios in New York and Los Angeles. Collectors of his work, which includes original sculptures, portrait commissions and reproductions of world masterpieces, all rendered in plastic bricks, include former president Bill Clinton and skateboarder Tony Hawk.
Although the artist was coy when asked in a recent interview about his finances, the Upstart Business Journal reported Sawaya’s annual earnings at six figures in 2008. It’s hard to imagine that this figure isn’t even higher now. According to Sawaya, his yearly budget for art supplies — which he buys by the tens of thousands every month, directly from Lego — is in the sixfigure range. “I have a very good business relationship with the Lego group,” he said. “I’m a unique customer.”
“I’m happy to have people come through the exhibition and put a smile on their faces,” Sawaya says.
For now, Sawaya has no plans to switch to another art form, comparing the plastic brick’s system of interlocking studs and tubes not to paint, clay or any other medium but to what mathematician Soren Eilers calls in the film an “infinitely flexible” shared language. Besides, Sawaya says with characteristic understatement, he’s in it too deep at this point to quit.
“I have 4 1/2 million bricks in my studio. I’ll probably stick with this a little while longer.”