Art of the Brick -- LEGOs come to Philadelphia

As soon as Don learned the Art of the Brick exhibit was coming to Philadelphia he wanted to go. Specifically, he wanted to go with Ashley. Anyone who has a young adult in your life knows it is a challenge getting on their schedule. Add in Don's work schedule at REI, and the ticket availability at the Franklin Institute and what should have been simple, simply became complicated.

We learned when we got tickets to last year's Disney 100 exhibit that tickets are cheaper after the museum closes because you can get an exhibit only ticket. Rather than $39, on select Thursday nights the tickets are $17.

The exhibit is based on the book The Art of the Brick: a life in LEGO. by Nathan Sawaya. Nathan realized he would rather sit on the floor playing with LEGO pieces than be a lawyer. Fortunately he was very good at creating LEGO artwork and could monetize his passion. That is inspirational enough.

The exhibit moves between recreated paintings to reimagined sculptures to ideas in his head to animals to reimagined photographs to a Liberty Bell (after all, we are in Philadelphia) to a 9,000 square foot room where you can play.

Many of the pieces included information about the original piece, how he modified it, and how many bricks it took to create. 

What impressed me most was it was all works created by one person. When I heard about the exhibit I thought it would be pieces created by a variety of artists.

We each took the exhibit at our own pace. It didn't turn into the family bonding event I had hoped for, but I think we all enjoyed it. In the end, we sat with some pieces and created art. Nathan says it doesn't matter what you use to create art, just as long as we all continue to create art.

We ended our trip to Philadelphia with some ice cream from Columbus-area based Jeni's Ice Creams.

Some highlights from the exhibit: