The Art of the Brick

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red self-

Portrait

red Mask

When you work as an artist, you see the natural

world around you differently. Things that you

might not have noticed before or just took for

granted, you start to see through the prism of

your art. So if you’re a painter and you see a

tree or a bird or a sunrise, you think, How could

I paint that? If you work in steel or marble, you

think, How could I sculpt that? For me, it’s all

about bricks. If I see the curve in a tree, or a

puffy white cloud, I think, How could I do that

with bricks?

That’s when you start to get into the artist’s state

of mind, that amazing, wonderful zone where

time stands still and all that exists is you, your

idea, and your medium.

Nothing is more real than the masks

we make to show each other who we

are. —Christopher Barzak

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That’s why natural history museums have always

resonated with me. You can find so much inspiration

just by walking around. Weird, crazy ideas that you

could never dream up, ideas that could come only

from real life. And the American Museum of Natural

History in New York is one of the best.

I was in the Hall of African Peoples, which has all

these wonderful masks on the wall of different

sizes, colors, and shapes. Masks that hid the faces

of warriors, of medicine men, and of the dead as

they moved into the afterlife. I looked at them and

thought, How could I make these out of LEGO bricks?

And so I made Red Mask. The face is mine. Only a

heck of a lot bigger.

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