Lego Maniacs

This time of year is what the locals call “shoulder season.”  The resorts are closed for skiing and the town quiets down quickly.  Here is a suggestion for what to do while exploring Main Street during the 2013 spring shoulder season:

photo (16)In my house, we speak three languages: English, Star Wars and Lego.

photo (14)Lego, often, is the predominant language, with my kids’ brick creations often expressing their every Star Wars fantasy, or say, their love for their mom. To wit: I came home one day to find that Seth had re-purposed the helicopter skids from one set, and the light sabers from another, plus the pirate’s ponytail from a third, to accessorize a mini figure into “Mom.” Perhaps my obsession with skiing is noticeable to my kids?

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(It is to everyone else, of course. Witness the sign I received as a 40th birthday gift from “Florida Keys Girl and Guy”, that reads simply: Eat. Sleep. Ski., that now hangs prominently in my home.)photo (19)

 Anyway, I knew we had a home run of a family activity when I saw that the Kimball Art Center (kimballartcenter.org) was hosting The Art of the Brick, an exhibition of the artist Nathan Sawaya’s sculptures that are made entirely out of our favorite molded bricks. We marveled at the skill with which he had created 3-D sculptures, optical illusions (“canvases” that looked, from afar, to be paintings, but turned out to be portraits rendered with the smooth sides of the bricks.)

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Naturally, the exhibit includes a play area in the gallery lobby for visitors to attempt their own creations on-site. (With Seth unable to pass up a chance to build, Lance, Jeff and I took turns visiting Mark Maziarz’s fascinating “geolines” exhibit, in which he has manipulated his signature nature images into a new art form.) http://www.kimballartcenter.org/?exhibit=geolines-by-mark-maziarz

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The Kimball is a great stop any week of the year, but if you have Lego fans in your life, get there before April 21, or log on to www.brickartist.com/exhibitions to see where the show is headed next.

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