When I was in primary school, my parents came home one day with a big orange box. The box had about a million pieces of Lego in it. I think they had bought it from parents of a child who had grown out of it and it contained a wide variety of random pieces. This was back in the days when if you bought Lego, you just bought a selection of bricks rather than the packages you get these days of Hogwarts or a pirate ship.
I can’t remember if I was very excited, but in retrospect I really should have been. That one box of Lego provided me with many hours of fun throughout my childhood, attempting to create many different things out of what was available.
I was slightly OCD, however, and everything had to be the same colour. I couldn’t have a house with mostly red bricks and a few random other colours to make up the numbers. That annoyed me and if I was playing with other children, I would secretly rip apart anything they’d made which didn’t conform to my monocolour brick rules and rebuild it appropriately.
The orange box disappeared one day. I am assuming that when my parents thought I had grown out of Lego, they sold it onto the parents of another family who I hope enjoyed it as much as I did. I’m not sure you can ever actually grow out of Lego.
Recently, my life has converged around a few Lego-based things and I started thinking about all the things I used to make.
My cousin sold me his copy of Lego Marvel Superheroes on the Playstation 4. I’m fairly sure it is the first and currently only game that I have fully completed. 100%. Platinum medal. All of that jazz. I’d previously played some of Lego Star Wars, although I didn’t get into as much. Possibly because superheroes are much cooler than lightsabers, no matter what anyone says.
The humour of the game, and of the TV shows (I have only watched one, so I am assuming it runs throughout the other ones) is simple, childish… but still brilliant. It draws you into it’s universe and reminds you of a simpler time when all that mattered was making sure that all your buildings were made of the same colour bricks. Well, that’s what it reminds me of anyway.
Shortly after completing the game, Lovefilm sent me the Lego Movie which I got around to watching the best part of a year after everyone else. I was worried that I would be disappointed after everyone had told me how amazing it is. I was not disappointed. The main part of the film is brilliant and then the metaphysical ending where it turns out Will Ferrell is actually a real life human being rather than a Lego overlord was unexpected but perfect.
I started working in London a couple of months ago and have been using my holiday to take half days and do touristy things. There is currently an exhibition of Lego art called the Art of Brick which, aptly enough, it is in Brick Lane. When I heard about this, I decided to treat myself to a visit as a birthday present to myself.
The exhibition is all work from an American man named Nathan Sawaya who quit his job as a lawyer to make Lego art. As a job. That is so incredibly cool and inspiring. I kind of want to be him. Especially after you watch some of the videos at the exhibition and realise he is actually a very lovely chap.
I highly recommend this exhibition – it is on until April 2015 and costs about £15 but is worth every penny. I’ve included a couple of photos to give you an idea of the artwork on display. The first couple of rooms feature replicas of other artworks which are cool, but it is not until you get into the rooms where he has created original pieces that you start to see how amazing his work is.
After all of this recent Lego based excitement, I have obviously bought my niece some Duplo for Christmas. Well, I say it’s for my niece….