Subtitles section Play video Print subtitles Lego has given me the title "really unique customer," 'cause I buy hundreds of thousands of Lego every month. I used to practice corporate law in New York City: mergers, acquisitions, real exciting stuff. I would come home after a long day at the law firm, and I would need some sort of outlet. And I would draw. I would paint. Sometimes I would sculpt. It was just one day I thought about this toy from my childhood, Lego bricks. Could I sculpt large-scale sculptures using this toy? And so I started experimenting. And I just dug out all the old bricks I had from when I was a kid. And just tried to replicate things I saw in my apartment. And I put together a website which became really my virtual gallery. People started contacting me and saying, "Hey, can you build me this?" "Can you build me that?" Actually when my website crashed from too many hits, that I realized "ah, there's something to this." I decided to make that change. And I left the law firm behind to play with bricks full time. The reaction from friends and family was interesting. There were some people who were a little negative about it, and thought I was crazy. I didn't know how long it would last. I thought, maybe I'll be able to pay rent next month. But I don't know if I'll have a job after that. During those downtimes, when I didn't have something, didn't have a commission, that's when I would create art for myself. And that's really what "The Art of the Brick" became. This exhibition of art that I created on my own that now tours the globe. The time it takes to create a sculpture really depends on the size and complexity of the piece. So a life-size human form can take up to two to three weeks. Something smaller could be done maybe in a few days or a day. The longest I've ever worked on something is about three months, for a sculpture of a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton that was about 20 feet long. Recently, I spent two months working on a Batmobile. The bricks I use in my art are the very same bricks that people can purchase at a toy store. I don't paint them. I don't have access to special colors or special shapes and sizes. And we're in my art studio today where I have over 5 million Lego bricks. When you look at my sculptures up close, you see all those sharp corners and right angles. And then you back away from it, and all those corners, they blend into curves. That's kind of the magic of using Lego bricks. You know, you don't have to find one career path. There are many ways to get to where you wanna go. Even if you don't know where that is right now. You can always change what you are. To see how pro-snowboarder Mike Basich chases storms in his mobile, tiny home, Watch this next video. The view always changes, which's been really fun. You just pull up the side of road, all of a sudden you have lakefront property, international forest. Next one, you're on a little creek or out in the desert. The landscape's just amazing. It's like having real estate that's priceless. Everybody misses home at some level. You never get homesick with this. Thanks for watching. Please subscribe to "Seeker Stories". So you can see new videos every week.
B1 US lego art toy law firm sculpture paint I Left My Law Career To Be A Lego Artist 34844 2021 Kristi Yang posted on 2023/08/31 More Share Save Report Video vocabulary