The Art of the Brick

36

When in doubt, wear red.

— Bil l Bl a s s

unfaMiliar

PlaCes

red dress

One morning, I awoke to a strange email in my inbox.

It was a photographer who wanted to collaborate on

a project. Based in Brisbane, Australia, this Dean West

had suggested mixing my LEGO sculptures into his

own hyperrealistic photographs. Because I get many

invitations like this and most of them come to nothing,

I emailed back saying, “If you’re serious, come to

New York,” and then promptly forgot about it. To my

surprise, two weeks later, Dean was knocking on my

door with a hundred ideas and no time to waste. The

collaboration became our In Pieces series.

Working with Dean forced me into places I don’t

usually go. Normally, I sit in a room by myself,

surrounded by dozens of boxes of bricks arranged

by color and shape. It’s a familiar space. I can reach

for the next thing I need without looking, and the

ideas flow through my fingers automatically. I have my

37

sketches, which I generally don’t share with anyone

else; most of what I’m looking for is in my head. But

with Dean, over the course of several years, I found

myself driving thousands of Nevada miles to find

the precise kind of fencing he wanted, talking down

a disgruntled motel owner brandishing a shotgun,

standing on a studio rooftop dressed as a cowboy

(the talent hadn’t shown up for the shoot), and

taking photos of a Los Angeles storefront at four in

the morning because we couldn’t afford the official

permits.

Dean’s photography gave my sculpture a context

itdoesn’t usually have. In the case of Red Dress,

thatcontext was a near-desolate cinema on a winter

night. The girl in the red dress is alone, maybe

abandoned. The kid in the ticket booth is there, but

protected from the elements by a pane of glass. A

red light, perhaps from a departing car, glows from

the bottom-right corner.

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In the story we’d written for ourselves, she leaves

home in this gorgeous creation, a confident, attractive

woman about to enjoy a night out. But in the work, on

the other side of that night out, we see that confident

identity has been stripped away. Dean and I wanted

the wintry wind to be howling, tearing at the dress and

scattering its fragments. I’d created a dress before, but

nothing like this. Getting the flow of the fabric just right

was technically very difficult, but Dean never tired of

talking about it or finding ways to make the sculpture

and photo better.

Red Dress is now one of my favorite pieces. And

though he drove me nuts at the time, I have Dean

to thank for it.