Publicity:

Many people dream of turning a childhood passion into a career, and Nathan Sawaya is a man who's doing just that.

Tracy Bowden meets a New Yorker who's given up his job as a corporate lawyer to spend his days building with plastic bricks.

He's a LEGO master builder - a title held by only 40 people in the world.

Lego bricks

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00:00

BOWDEN:  For more than 50 years these versatile plastic bricks have inspired creations, from the simple to the fantastic. 

00:08

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00:17

Time-lapse. Nathan building blue man

BOWDEN:  Just ask this man, who's a member of an exclusive club.

00:25

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00:29

BOWDEN:  Nathan Sawaya is a LEGO Master Builder -- a title held by only 40 people in the world.

00:36

NATHAN:  There we go. Ta Da!

00:47

Nathan

BOWDEN:  Nathan, what do you tell people when they ask what you do for a living?

00:50

NATHAN:  I tell them I am an artist, and then eventually they ask me about the medium I use, and I say plastic, and then eventually I tell them I work with LEGO.

00:52

Lego bricks in boxes

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01:02

BOWDEN:  So how many bricks do you think you've got in here?

NATHAN:  There is about one point 5 million LEGO bricks here.

01:03

Montage of Nathan's LEGO works

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01:07

BOWDEN:  And in the hands of this 34-year-old LEGO artist they can be turned into almost anything in the world.

01:19

Nathan

NATHAN: For me now it is taking these bricks and making them into whatever I want, but in a more artistic sense. At least that is what I try to do.

01:27

Photo. Nathan as child

BOWDEN:  Nathan Sawaya was five years old when he got his first set of inter-connecting bricks on Christmas Day 1978.  Like millions of children around the world, he was hooked.

NATHAN: Being able to create, and take apart and create again. It's a toy that never ends,

01:36

Nathan

At least how I looked at it as a child whatever I wanted that day I could build it. If I wanted to be in a rock band I could build a guitar, if I wanted to be an army guy I could build a gun, that's what LEGO was about.

01:54

Tight shots. Nathan building

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02:06

BOWDEN:  More than 20 years later, Nathan Sawaya entered a LEGO building contest, and won. The company offered him a job as a master builder.

02:12

NATHAN:  It was in San Diego on the west coast, and I was living in New York City

02:21

Nathan

at the time as a lawyer. So do I leave my lucrative law job and go work for $13 an hour with LEGO and I said yes, and I made the leap.

02:23

Tight shots. Nathan building

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02:35

BOWDEN:  Within months, he made an even bigger leap, going freelance, working out of his New York apartment.

02:39

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02:45

BOWDEN:  As with any building project, things don't always go to plan.

02:50

Nathan working on Colbert bust

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02:55

BOWDEN:   Today a likeness of American comic and TV commentator Steve Colbert is proving challenging.

03:02

NATHAN:  I've been pretty happy with how his eyes  turned out, with how his nose turned out, but his mouth has just not clicked for me, and so this is the fourth mouth attempt.

03:09

Every time I think I get it, I think I'm happy, I glue it, I'm finalized.

03:18

And then I stare at him and a day later I am like no,

03:25

and then hence I have to chisel him apart.

03:30

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03:33

BOWDEN:  This one is just for fun - and in case  that guest appearance comes along - but the real money comes from commissioned work.

03:35

NATHAN:  My favourite thing is just to build for myself,

03:43

Nathan

and that is a lot of works that you see in the museum exhibit are things I have just put together for myself over the years and that's where I really enjoy my work.

03:46

Exhibition

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03:56

BOWDEN:  A selection of Nathan's work is now on tour in The Art of the Brick exhibition.

04:03

NATHAN:  I am trying to take it to a place it has never been before.

04:08

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04:10

Nathan with kids at Discovery Center

Nathan: Now what have you made here?... Very nice work. Very good job.  I like your use of colour.

04:15

BOWDEN:  At the Discovery Center in Rockford Illinois dozens of budding artists are eager to meet the master.

04:21

Nathan: I was five years old when I first got my first LEGO set.

04:28

BOWDEN:  When is it something you have built out of LEGO bricks and when is it art?

04:34

NATHAN: It is always art, right. It's art because I say it is;

04:38

Nathan

very post modern.

BOWDEN:  But is what you did when you were five art then?

NATHAN:  It is to the five year old.

04:41

Kids building with LEGO at Discovery Center

A lot of people ask me are there other LEGO artists out there and I say there are 70 million other kids out there who are creating and I can't say that they're not artists, of course they are artists.

04:48

Red, Yellow and Blue Men

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04:57

BOWDEN:  Three of the most popular works in the exhibition are the sculptures blue, red and yellow.

05:01

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05:08

NATHAN: Birth, life and death.

05:12

Blue, now I see it as putting himself together, and really birth.

05:15

Red, where this man is either sinking into LEGO brick or rising out of brick. Either way it is definitely a transition and I see that as life.

05:20

And then you have yellow, who is tearing himself apart and that is death.

05:29

BOWDEN:  In case you're wondering about the price-tag on LEGO art,  Nathan has just been offered $20,000 for blue.

05:33

He's making as much as an artist as he did as a lawyer.

05:43

Nathan with kids

BOWDEN:  And I guess I don't need to ask you which is more fun?

05:47

NATHAN:  This is a lot more fun. In fact the worst day being an artist is still better than the best day being a lawyer.

05:49

Nathan in LEGO ‘bath'

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05:57

BOWDEN:  And how does Nathan Sawaya relax after a hard days' building? By immersing himself even further in his art.

06:02

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06:10

Credits:

Reporter: Tracy Bowden

Camera:  Tim Bates

Editor: Woody Landay