Bricksy by Jeff Friesen

Author:Jeff Friesen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Published: 2014-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

It’s never polite to drone on and on.

How long does it take to set up each diorama?

That is a common question with a complicated answer. Each diorama goes through four or five phases.

Phase 1 is conceptualizing what the scene should look like. I do this while walking around town, often passing right by friends who I don’t notice while in this daydreaming state. It’s a social hazard.

Phase 2 is building the diorama. The LEGO diorama is always different than the conceptualized version due to limited bricks, limited colors, and limits in the laws of physics. Building a small scene takes an hour or two, while large scenes are tinkered with over a couple of days.

Phase 3 is photographing the diorama. The photography is a process of trial and error for lighting and compositional adjustments. There’s a cycle of taking photographs, reviewing the photographs, going back to tweak the scene, and retaking the photos until everything comes together.

Phase 4 is postproduction of the digital image file. There is very little digital work done on these photos except for one Herculean task, which is cookie crumb removal. Crumbs, lint, and dust that are invisible to the human eye become very noticeable when the pictures of LEGO are blown up larger than life-size, which is often. I’m starting to do this with an analog technique, which involves rinsing the bricks with water before taking the picture.

The other digital work that occurs occasionally is adding floating objects to a scene, such as Mousy Poppins on pages 9–10.

Phase 4 should be the work’s end, but it can be followed by a fifth phase. Phase 5 is when I review a finished picture a week or two after its completion and decide to make the whole thing over again. Everything is rebuilt from scratch. None of these dioramas stays together long.

Is it weird to be playing with LEGO while your daughter is at school?

I try to avoid talking about this with people leading productive lives.

But you’re having lots of fun playing with LEGO all day, right?

LEGO is associated with fun because it’s a toy, but as an artistic medium it’s not much different than carving soapstone or making a paper collage. It’s challenging just like any other creative endeavor. That said, it is fun in the way that solving a puzzle is fun. It has been said that kids don’t play because it’s easy; they play because it’s hard. That’s how I feel about making things with LEGO.

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