LUGNET News : ~1444/sculpture/space


David V. Winkler / sculpture / space

David Winkler’s Lego Nudes for Space Gallery

In early February 2006 I was at the opening of the Space Gallery.

After a glass or two of wine I mentioned to the gallery owner that I did Lego sculpture. During a break I showed him an online photo of the sitting man. He said that he’d like to show my stuff in his gallery.

The we started talking details. The gallery would need three to five sculptures. The sculptures would need to be glued. I said that I could have them done by mid-May 2006.

My initial plan was for a month of design followed by three weeks per sculpture.

This project would not have been possible if not for the help of Dan Parker. At several key points in the project he shared his vast experience with Lego.

Dan taught me how to glue Legos together. He also told me how long the sculptures should really take.

I needed to figure out poses for the sculptures. I looked at books on bodybuilding and dynamic anatomy. I looked at figurative photography. I looked at books on balet. What I found most useful were books on Yoga. Yoga poses are designed to be held for a considerable amount of time, so are pretty stable.

In late February I ordered the first batch of pieces from Precious Princess Palace. To reduce the already staggering materials cost of the model I decided to use mostly 2x3 bricks (

) for structure. The 86lbs box of materials for the first sculpture was delivered by a struggling UPS employee.

By early March I had reasonable plans for what I wanted to build. I started building the yellow man on March 15th. The yellow man is a sculpture of a naked male bodybuilder. He is posed kneeling, chest slightly tilted to his left. His fists are raised over his head. I quickly realized how much gluing slows down the building of Lego sculpture.

Much of the slowdown of building was pausing between layers to allow the glue fumes to dissapate. To speed up the process I bought an enormous fan. Ace Hardware sold me a 42 inch drum fan. The airflow from the fan was enough that I din’t have to pause between layers. I was back on schedule again.

Then I got to the arms. The sculptures didn’t have an internal frame, so the arms needed to be made extra strong to support their weight at the odd angle. This involved meticulous gluing of each and every lego in the arms. The arms and head took almost half of the time of the yellow man sculpture. I finished the yellow man on April 14th.

About this time I was told that I’d be going on a business trip to Israel for a week and a half. There went the schedule again. I talked with the gallery owner again and proposed two sculptures and a wall hanging. I was back on schedule again.

The yellow man has a large chest and has his arms over his head. He is slightly top-heavy. I had been planning to do a standing sculpture. After the yellow man I started to rethink that.

My second sculpture, red man, became all about stability. It is another male nude. I ended up designing a person lying on the floor. This put the center of gravity very low. His head rests on his hands, attaching his arms to his head. His ankles are crossed, attaching his legs together. This makes him really really strong.

Completing the red man took about another month, with a business trip in the middle. When I got back I discovered that one of the last things that I had done before leaving was to glue a crucial piece in the wrong place. With my roommate’s help I was able to rip the sculpture apart enough to recover. I finished the red man on May 20th, allowing enough time for the glue to dry before transport.

Then I started on the wall hanging. The only thing that I had time to do was a mosaic. I built a 96x96 mosaic of a tasteful male nude.

I needed to get the sculptures to the gallery. I hadn’t built the sculptures to break into pieces. Thankfully I had the forethought to make them small enough to get them out my front door. Dan Parker told me how he shipped his pieces. His method involved a lot of building, but I am not competent with power tools. Instead I called up Universal Box and Crate. Two days later they delivered two custom crates made of 1/4 inch plywood (they suggested thicker, but I chose 1/4 inch to make the crates lighter). Dan Parker was extremely generous helping me pack the sculptures into these crates. We wrapped each of the sculptures in saran wrap. Then we used 2’x4’x2” bricks of insulation foam from Home Depot for most of the volume of the crates, cut to fit the sculpture. Some areas we braced with expanding bags of foam from Sealed Air Incorporated. I rented a truck from Penske. I convinced friends and coworkers to help me load and unload the truck.

The week of Monday May 22, 2006 I delivered three pieces to the gallery. The yellow man took about 13500 pieces. If he were standing he’d be about 7 feet tall. The red man took about 11000 pieces. If he were standing he’d be about 5’8” tall. The mosaic took about 8000 pieces. If he were standing he’d be about 5’6” tall.

The two sculptures were displayed at BrickFest2006. They yellow man won the ‘Best Extra-Large Sculpture’ award.

Photos by others:
found by google search: http://seattle.metblogs.com/archives/2006/04/lego_sculpture.phtml
found by google search: http://forums.thestranger.com/showthread.php?t=3025
photos by Dan Sabath of the gallery opening: http://rustyclank.com/gallery/lego/Fests/dwinkler_sculptures
(blurry) photo of the pair at BrickFest2006: http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=2137040

Primary content in this document is © David V. Winkler. All other text, images, or trademarks in this document are the intellectual property of their respective owners.