Kevin Hall is the Studio Manager for Artisan Creative and, unbeknown to many, an AFOL (adult fan of lego). Creativity takes many forms and here, Kevin explores the blocked kind.

When we think of art, we tend to usually think of paintings, bronze statues, marble busts, etc. Not many people would think of a childhood toy as an art medium! Lego has been in peoples homes throughout the world for the past half a century and is still one of the most popular toys in existence.

Like myself, you can probably remember stepping on one of those bricks that were left spread out over the floor while you navigated around to find a certain piece to add to your building or oddly shaped Lego car. But probably unlike myself, you would have never of thought in your adult years you would still be building with these multicoloured blocks of plastic.
Around the world there is a huge following of Adult Fans Of Lego, or AFOLs for short. From the cities in the US and the UK, to the suburbs of Melbourne right here in Australia many adults still collect Lego and are hard at work build amazing sculptures and pieces of art.

A lot of AFOLs have favourite themes, medieval and castle Lego mine, but some of these artists are commissioned to create masterpieces in their own right. Nathan Sawaya is one of these ‘Brick Artists’ and has been commissioned to build sculptures for museums, festivals, and even The National Museum of the Marine Corps in the US. His work includes sculptures of people and everyday objects, portraits, logos, and contemporary art. Be inspired and check out some of his amazing work on his website, www.brickartist.com.

I was lucky to pay a visit to Legoland Windsor when I was living in the UK a few years back and was in awe of the realistic models and art created out of the humble Lego brick. Lego is fast gaining popularity with a lot of artists as this medium can be assembled and disassembled into anything that your imagination can come up with.

Another amazing Brick Artist is Eric Harshbarger, check out his website with an amazing amount of work gone into his artworks, www.ericharshbarger.org/lego. Eric is famous in the Lego world for his mosaics. These are like tile mosaics that the Romans built hundreds of years ago, but instead of ceramic tiles, Lego tiles are used. In these Lego mosaics, hundreds, if not thousands of tiny Lego tiles are put together almost like pixels on your computer monitor to create lifelike images. A lot of Lego mosaic artists have recreated some of the worlds most famous paintings from the Mona Lisa to William-Adolphe Bouguereau's painting, Song Of The Angels. There is an huge wall at Lego land which is covered with an mosaics of famous faces like Elvis, Margret Thatcher and even Bob the Builder.

If you are interested in Lego and would love to get involved in your local are, have a look on www.lugnet.com, this is a Lego Users Group that is world wide and lists most of the clubs, groups and Lego organisations.

The local Melbourne Lego group meets around once a month and organises an Australian National Lego Festival that runs for a whole weekend called Brickvention. This is held once a year where AFOLs and the Lego company, put on an amazing array of Lego sets, sculptures and pieces of art made of Lego that the general public can oh and ah over. For more information, visit, www.brickventures.com. I will look forward to meeting more Lego fans at the next one.