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Brickworkz LEGO mosaics : Headlinez : Harvard University Journalism article, July 2006 Megapixel ManDouglas Payne, Harvard University Brian Korte has collected many distinguished titles in his young life: Eagle Scout. Church youth leader. Editor in chief of his university's online weekly magazine. Webmaster. Mentor. Teacher. Marketing channel manager. MBA. Entrepreneur. The 28-year-old can now add a new title to his résumé: LEGO mosaic artist. After launching a Richmond, Va.-based technology consulting firm in 2004, Korte, a native of the Washington, D.C. area, decided to grow another business - this one built on his lifelong passion for Legos, the colorful plastic bricks found in children's toy chests (and on floors, under beds, in parents' shoes) the world over. The ubiquitous Lego bricks also serve as this artist's preferred medium. "People of all ages really connect with Legos," Korte recently deadpanned as he showed visitors around the artsy digs of C3, a creative incubator and gallery located in Richmond's Shockoe Bottom historic district. His summer exhibit opened on June 14, and will run through July 31. The exhibit features 10 works of art that average 45 inches by 30 inches and reflects Korte's personal interests as well as a few examples of his commissioned pieces. Included in the exhibit is the piece that started it all, "The Pollards," a 10,034-brick portrait of a young couple Korte presented as a wedding gift to two of his best friends. There's also a self-portrait called "Travelin' Man" - 13,824 bricks - that features Korte in a black cowboy hat on the side of a lonely South Dakota highway. And there's "Jedi Master," 13,824 bricks, a tribute to Yoda, the fictional 500- year-old Star Wars character, and "Baby Klause, a portrait of a friend's newborn son that shows a baby ("yawning, crying - who is to say?") rendered in full color using 8,560 bricks. One of the more recent works, "Pixel Kiss," which took a whopping 20,736 bricks, pays homage to 1960s pop artist Roy Lichtenstein's "Kiss V 1969" and makes excellent use of the vivid red, yellow, blue, black and white color palette Lichtenstein favored. The exhibit has been received with considerable enthusiasm from the opening night - high praise for a town with a thriving art community. "People are just amazed," said Carrie Belt, assistant director of C3, a nonprofit that operates as a creative incubator for a variety of visual artists, fine artists, writers and web designers. "The Brickworkz exhibit literally takes visitors' breath away ... they just can't believe someone could create such beautiful works of art with Legos." According to Belt, Korte had been visiting C3 for a year, meeting with clients and making connections with other designers and artists as he was building his technology consulting business. "Then one day Brian asked me if I'd like to see some of his 'Lego art.'" Belt was intrigued, and when he showed her some sample photos of his work, she was floored. She immediately knew an exhibit was in order. "Right now, the exhibit has become so popular that we've decided to extend it another three weeks. I'm now strongly encouraging Brian to exhibit internationally." In Belt's opinion, Korte's work is "really that good." Korte, doesn't yet seem ready for the world stage. "I just like to see people's reactions," he said. During the exhibit's opening night, a well-dressed couple approached him to offer praise and words of encouragement. As the wife chatted with Korte, the husband, who works for the Richmond Symphony, seemed somewhat reserved and said very little as he marveled at the Lego artwork on the walls around him. After the husband excused himself, his wife confided to Korte that he had the "entire Lego Star Wars collection" on display on shelves around their home. "I love hearing stories like this," Korte said, chuckling. " Like I said, most people really make a connection with Legos." From a distance, the tiny bricks resemble pixels in a digital photograph, and in fact, Korte often uses high contrast/low resolution digital photos as the basis for his creations. The closer one gets to the artwork the more evident the "pixels" or tiny square Lego bricks become. Korte painstakingly mimics the photographic pixels, alternating dark and light colored bricks to correspond to each pixel in a template photo. It's similar to cross- stitching, he said, but it's all done by "eyeballing" the photo; there is no penciled-in pattern to follow. Even the black edges that frame the artwork are made of beveled Lego bricks set end-on-end, making the artwork and frame a single, continuous medium. Still, working in Legos has its advantages: because the Lego bricks are not glued down - suggest this and he will look at you as if you are insane-but simply connected to a larger Lego panel behind them, mistakes are easy to fix and cleanup doesn't require paint thinner, water or scrubbing. "You just pick them up and put them away." Korte explained. However, the artwork is time-intensive to construct; each portrait can take up to 30 hours to complete. "At five cents a brick, I estimate I've spent over $5,000 in material and at least 250 hours on the entire exhibit," Korte explained. It is truly a labor of love - if not yet a profitable venture - although he received a commission from a local dentist soon after the show opened. "The Smile" features an extreme close up of pearly white teeth framed by sensuous red lips that will soon grace the wall of the dentist's office. Korte vividly remembers first playing with Legos at the age of 5. He described the bricks as "mostly hand-me-downs" from his older brother's collection. "My favorite thing was to build castles," he remembered fondly. He loved the idea that he could take piles and piles of the plastic bricks and, by carefully following the graphic directions and arranging them in an orderly fashion, he could build beautiful works of art and "use up every single piece" by the end of the exercise. "That's what I found most fascinating: taking pieces that, individually, didn't amount to anything, but when put together as a whole, made these really elaborate castles." His mother and father encouraged his artistic bent, and enrolled him in art and music lessons when he was 6 or 7. The middle of three boys, Korte thrived in an artistic environment and would often get lost for hours in his own world. He'd later hone his creative and organizational skills and apply them to the Boy Scouts of America, youth leadership classes at his church, studies and activities during his university years, teaching and even in building and managing Web sites as a Web designer in the advertising and technology fields. In fact, Korte has a long history of connecting the dots in his own life. Just out of college with a degree in advertising, he landed a lucrative job as a Web site manager outside Washington, D.C., and was able to live virtually rent-free at home with his parents. As a result, he was able to save a considerable amount of money over the next couple of years, but soon realized that his job was becoming less and less fulfilling. Against his better judgment, Korte gave his boss two weeks' notice one day and set out across America on a solo journey that would eventually end with pilgrimages to cultural landmarks in each of the 48 contiguous states. Armed with a laptop, digital camera and a genuine passion to experience new people and places, he made the trip in stages, returning home every couple of months to work consulting jobs to keep money in the bank. Each time he returned to life on the road, he meticulously recorded the details of his adventures in an online journal that kept him connected to family and friends back home, and to the University of Phoenix, where he eventually earned an online Master of Business Administration degree. Korte, who unabashedly describes himself as a "geek," loved being tethered electronically to home, school and friends while on the road. Even today, Korte is plotting his next sojourn to Europe and, because he is so technology-savvy, home - and work - is where the laptop is. Would he ever consider going back to the corporate world? He flatly dismissed the notion. "I'm just not wired that way. The corporate mentality isn't for me at all." As for the future of Brickworkz, Korte is taking a wait-and-see approach. Like any good MBA, he developed a business strategy that includes a contingency plan in the event Brickworkz becomes an avocation rather than a profession. And he hasn't let his consulting business slide, either; most days finds him checking in at C3 before heading off to a client meeting for his consulting gig. But it is clear that Korte's true passion lies with his artwork. "The technology work pays the bills, but I really need the creative outlet of Brickworkz." There is a certain wisdom in Korte's conclusion that working with Legos can be a lot like life itself. If you have the right building blocks, "you can follow the directions or not, and either way is OK." |
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