Minimalist LEGO
Every now and again, the idea of sitting down to freehand some LEGO seems much more appealing than anything else in life. While feeling particularly inspired recently, I decided to make my own “Toynbee Tile”—a recreation of the fascinating and cryptic street art that I wrote about awhile ago.
A standard Toynbee Tile. Image via Wikipedia.
Wanting to do it right, I (digitally) sketched out the design and made some plans:
As the below video shows, however, I very quickly realized that I probably wasn’t going to have enough bricks to complete my design and even if I did: this thing was going to take up way too much space.…
Not to be defeated, I came up with the idea of making some “minimalist” LEGO designs. Thus, my Toynbee Tile was reduced to this abstract version:
Photographed on the street out front.
Fueled by a few beers and a burst of creativity, I continued to make other minimalist creations (if you want to have a guess as to what they are, the answers are at the end of this post):
No. 1
No. 2
No. 3
No. 4
No. 5
No. 6
No. 7
I also decided to replicate some work by the street artist known as Invader:
Recreation of Invader’s “NY_169” as seen in New York, 2015.
Recreation of Invader’s “NY_160” as seen in New York, 2015.
Recreation of Invader’s “ROM_06” as seen in Rome, 2010.
I wasn’t sure of the best way to document these things, but after I ran into some friends at the neighborhood bar one evening, we set about making photographs. Gin & Tonic may fuel spontaneous creativity, but it doesn’t always give oneself the best eye for detail. Editing these photos in the aftermath of that night, it’s clear just how much dog hair and dust had accumulated on these LEGO bricks while sitting in my apartment, as well as, the fact that I hadn’t snapped all the bricks together or aligned things before shooting.
The dog who sheds everywhere and supervises all photo shoots.
Still, I’m grateful to Danny and Cincinnati’s Best Photographer, Catie Viox, for helping me shoot these images. The best folks are the kinds who’ll help you turn a bar into a photo studio for documenting your insomnia and anxiety driven creations.
In addition to dust and dog hair, you can see a lot of the defects and scratches in the bricks once you zoom in. I thought about editing those out, but kept them anyways. They’re marks from years of use by myself as a kid and my dad before me.
P.S. Dad, if you read this…it won’t be like building on the floor of my room and watching the Bulls vs. Jazz on a 5 inch black and white t.v. in 1998, but if you ever wanna come build some LEGO—you know what my favorite bar is. Bring the dog some treats and thanks for the LEGO all those years ago.
Answers:
Typewriter
iPad w/ Apple Pencil
Gumball/prize machine (the yellow things inside are Minifigure heads)
Phone booth
Shell station (the Shell logo brick comes from a Dutch set)
Bonsai tree
Streetcar/tram
Other stuff I’ve built with LEGO:
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