CityView Magazine

28 | September/October 2016 art BY SARA COOKE N ATURE CONNECTS® Art with LEGO® Bricks, an award-winning exhibit making its way around the country, will soon be coming to Fayetteville where the Cape Fear Botanical Garden will act as host. is exhibit, which includes 27 larger than life sculptures, ranging in size from mere inches to a five-foot bumblebee and an eight-foot tall hummingbird, was built with a total of more than 500,000—that's a whopping half a million!—colorful LEGO bricks. Renowned New York artist and best-selling children's book author Sean Kenney, who calls himself "a professional kid," is responsible. He has been using LEGO bricks to design and create contemporary sculptures for high-profile clients, major corpora- tions and venues around the globe for over 10 years. His work has been featured in e New York Times, e Wall Street Journal, e Washington Post, PBS Arts, BBC Arts, NHK Japan, ABC World News, HGTV, ELLE, Wired and more, and aer a lifetime of building for fun, Kenney decided to turn his hobby into a career and began creating his large- scale artwork. "To me, LEGO pieces are a creative medium," he says, "like a pencil, clay or paint, LEGO pieces are simple enough for a three-year-old, but versatile enough to create serious, thought-provoking, beautiful works of art." He says that while fundamentally LEGOs are a children's toy, unlike play-dough or finger paint, LEGO pieces retain their shape, which offers children who play with them a direct connection. "is also gives the children a common bond with the art or even the artist," he said. Nature Connects ® Art with LEGO ® Bricks premiering soon at the Cape Fear Botanical Garden Connecting Nature and LEGOs Photos contributed by NATURE CONNECTS

• Cover