Sawaya made the leap from corporate attorney to Lego artist in 2004. At any given time, his home contains some 2.5 million Lego bricks (some projects take over 80,000 bricks to build) and this easily costs Sawaya six figures every year. He starts a project by sketching the idea on brick paper first, though sometimes he uses Lego Digital Designer software which has virtual bricks programmed with gravitational physics for positioning. As he builds, he glues each piece in place. “I’ve done projects where I’ve had to chisel away days of work. But on the whole, it’s really therapeutic for me; I go into a kind of trance. I’ll often match the background music to where I am in the process.”
The New York University School of Law graduate went to work at an international legal firm, but after tediously long days. he needed a creative outlet. Sawaya began challenging himself with large-scale sculptures made of Legos, but when he put together a website and commissions started rolling in from around the world, he realized, ‘I can make money from this.'”
He has an eclectic array of celebrity clients from Donald Trump and skateboarding icon, Tony Hawk, to Fall Out Boy’s Pete Wentz, and Bill Clinton. Sawaya is the first artist to ever take LEGO into the art world, and his “Art of the Brick” solo show toured eight countries. His two books have been best sellers. One more reason to take up Lego construction? His works command from $10,000 to six figures, and