In 2007, Stephen Colbert actually asked Nathan Sawaya during his guest appearance, if becoming a LEGO artist was the “best way you could think of to tell your parents to go to hell?” Having now enjoyed major exhibitions of his work since 2002 and The Art of the Brick as a traveling exhibit since April of 2007, I doubt he still has to discuss his artistic legitimacy very often. In fact, just this month, he was awarded the “Most Creative Unusual Artist” by the Society of Unique Artists in New York. (Other nominees included Calvin Nicholls who creates paper art, Huang Taisheng who carves leaves and Robert Lang who works in origami.) What I am sure about is that his work is still surprising museum goers even while delighting that “kids of all ages” audience. I asked Nathan how he’s been feeling about his chosen medium lately:


“Internally, I have always been an artist. I believe in my work and what I do. I also believe there are no rules to art. So it’s only natural that I feel the artwork I craft from a child’s toy is unequivocally fine art. However, when I first broke out onto the art scene, there were curators quite skeptical that sculptures created from LEGO could


9 www.artizenmagazine.com


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