A Winters Piece

A Christmas time collaborative piece with the Winters.

Face House

Young builder is engaging matter on his own. It's beautiful to see. First he gathers the material from his bedroom. Making as much noise as possible he throw everything upside down on the floor and begins to build without anyone's help or approval.

One could miscategorize this piece assigning it to the functional zoofigurative school. The lying bee in the background in a dead giveaway. However the off-the-board door in the forefront is a clear pied-de-nez to the old masters' strict and all-on-the-board rule oriented building.

The composition of the 2 giraffes is simply sublime. Each looking their own way they brilliantly express the artist's refusal to conform to the established order. The artist has clearly departed from his classical foundation.

You're on your own now buddy!

Fences

The balance between freedoms and limitations is difficult to get right.
You are familiar with the process but not from that side of the fence.

You keep questioning the feedback loop. Are your sensors in the right place? Are you measuring the right values? Do we get fancy and preemptive or simply use a good reactive strategy with a lot of torque?

I have a feeling you don't know if you got it right until a lot later in the game.

South-Shore Pyramide

We love garage sales. First because they are the purest expression of the democratization of capitalism right on the front lawn (Exactly where capitalism likes to be). Seconds because we are voyeurs and going through people's stuff gives us a breathtaking view of what the neighbor has were hiding from us all winter. And finally because we can get great stuff for cheap. Boy do we love stuff.

Young builder's grand-mother bought this set of old Mega Bloks from a garage sale last year, nobody knew how to use them, nobody had even tried to open the bag. We just jumped in there like savages and gave this bag of blocks the ride of it's life!

Builder architectural notes:
Today's constraints were:

1. Use ALL the material available
   
2. Make a color coordination effort
   

Notice the exhaustion pattern from bottom to the top. It's been are recurring theme and with builder number 2 on it's way, I think we will have many more occasion of revisiting the subject.

Tunnel to Camel

The young builder is in a phase where he likes to run moving objects in, out and under covered structures. So I started this one for him thinking I could probably squeeze a few minutes of alone -time out of it and read the financial pages.

When I looked back, the bridge-tunnel had turned into a camel. "Not bad, apprentice!" I exclaimed inside my head as I placed my hand on his shoulder. Even when faced with the greatest accomplishments, the master must keep a detached attitude. These are the sacrifices that must be made to train a true Lego Master.

Quick Blurb

Sometimes you just build, no goal, no objective, no end game. I name this piece "Irak Invasion".

Builder of the Walls

Of my all time favorite bands, Dead Brain Cells has to be the one closest to my Cartesian side. You might want to make the case that my objective flanking is alone out there, but I would simply remind the 4 people reading these lines that I sometimes bug-out to slanderous mambo such as Au Bal Masqué.

Citing DBC's Estuary seems appropriate here given today's featured piece:

Builder of the walls
Back inside his guarded palace
Ruler over all

These lyrics and accompanying massive bass lines illustrate a key turning point in humanity's history. Even though there is no clear sign that the young builder is about to settle down, I'm hopeful that this conversion from a nomadic to a sedentary lifestyle is taking place as he twirls around the living room.

Are we building a ruler? Will he extend his control from inanimate objects to living being? Will he want to rules over all, including us?

Cityscape

It took a few months to get used to the new building material. Somehow too much is like not enough. We were overwhelmed by overabundance. But it's over now. We overcame this block but using a classic art school exercise. We secretly obligated ourselves to create pieces using all the available material.

The subject of choice is without hesitation... the city. Here it is in the morning light.

New Building Materials

We received a big 250-piece Mega Bloks tub from Santa this christmas. Let's build!

Collectif PM

Having learned about the discovery of high levels of lead in Mega Bloks, we decided to create a monument in commemoration for all the kids who suffered from lead poisoning by playing with yellow bricks. Here's the result.

Artsite en résidence - Greg

Greg made this tower after Godzilla the destroyer went to bed. It only postponed it's destruction until the next morning.

Final dimensions: 6 feet.

Artiste en résidence - Mila

Mila was experimenting with gravity and leaning towers in this piece. It inspires us all.

Notice the central tower, as color scheme intensifies from yellow to red it underlines the tension of the gravitational pull. The final roof-like block explodes into the unequivocal pressure of living at 9.8 meters per second.

A masterpiece!

Artiste en résidence - Marjo

Marjo

Reliquaire

African Ngulu Reliquary guarding the sofa where rests the remains of his dead master.

In these modern days where bone guards can be made of plastic blocks, refusal of payment is a rare event.. Sacred Africa is free and there is a nice reading room with four couches hidden at the very end.