We’ve been promising my kids we’d take them to Art of the Brick in Seattle. So, this past weekend we decided that “someday” had better happen pretty much immediately unless we wanted to pay to fly the kids to San Diego or Milan. Those are the two next stops for Nathan Sawaya’s exhibit.
At $35 each, tickets were expensive enough already.
What we didn’t think about when we promised to drive the kids into Seattle was that it was Labor Day weekend. And it was Bumbershoot. What is Bumbershoot? It’s this festival that might be amazing but we’d rather not know how amazing because traffic is JACKED during it so we stay safely on our side of the lake and the river and the cow pastures when it rolls around each year.
But we’d promised.
So we headed to Seattle.
And the exhibit did not disappoint. The art was gorgeous and exciting and got me feeling all tingly in this way I get when I see someone do something that’s never been done before.
It makes me want to make good art, to write amazing words, to innovate.
Nathan Sawaya was the first person to turn Lego sculpture into a respected art form. He was a lawyer who took his hobby to the next level times ten.
I feel this same way when I listen to Hamilton. What Lin Manuel Miranda does with music and history and storytelling and wordplay makes me want to hide in a closet with a notebook and refuse to eat until I unlock some hidden inner genius I know must be in there somewhere.
Great art inspires. Great art begets great art.
At the opening of the exhibit, you watch a video of Nathan Sawaya building with Lego. He’s building a giant grey hand. The hand is holding a red Lego brick. At the end of his video, he says that every piece of art he creates begins with just one brick.
Just one.
So if I want to make something beautiful, something innovative, I just need to start. I just need to take one small action to begin.
Maybe if we do a reboot of 523 Ways To Be Awesome someday, I’ll add, “Pick up a Lego brick and start creating” to the list of ways you can Paint a Masterpiece… a bit.
Everything we do starts with one brick. One drop. What’s your next one?
