I could not be more pleased to be bringing the name Nathan Sawaya back to your attention. Nathan is a brick builder. In fact, he’s a Master Brick Artist. You might have seen some of his work. If you have a few free hours today, I dare you to do a Google search of ‘Nathan Sawaya, sculptures’.
Our house is full of Nathan Sawaya fans. My three sons have been collecting and building with Lego bricks for almost 20 years. My youngest son has so many bricks to choose from that some of them are stored in huge tubs in our basement. So when we had a chance to meet Nathan Sawaya at one of his exhibits in NYC a few years ago, we jumped at the opportunity.
Nathan loves building with Lego bricks, but more than that, Nathan believes in art. He believes that art makes you happier, healthier, and gives perspective to your life. And he wants to help get more art in our public schools.
He’s teamed up with a brand called Art of Craft to release a brand new line of shirts that feature his work, with 10% of the proceeds going to a project called Art Revolution. This group’s goal is to get more art supplies in the hands of our children and more art programs in our schools.
It might be difficult to pick just one shirt. Many of them have the awesome declaration “Art is Not Optional’ and many have graphics of some of Nathan’s most popular sculptures. Here are some samples:
Nathan started his adult life working as a lawyer. It paid well but was not as fulfilling as the time he spent on the floor, building with his Lego bricks. So one day Nathan made a radical choice, and he chose joy. Building with bricks and making art with bricks gave him joy, so he found a way to do it full time. Now he wants to give that gift to kids.
In case you’d like to purchase something a bit more radical than a creative shirt with Nathan’s art on it, there are also ‘hugman sculptures’ available for sale. Have you not seen Nathan’s hugman campaign?
In order to spread a little joy to the world, Nathan started leaving hugman sculptures around in public places. They are little Lego guys who essentially hug things like fence posts, street sign poles, chair legs, or anything that their little arms can reach around. Now you can own your own 16″ hugman, built and signed by Nathan Sawaya himself. It’s a limited edition of 12, so jump on this quickly if you know someone who would love a hugman in his office, or would maybe like to treat yourself to a conversation starting gift. As if you need any more reason to buy your own hugman, a whopping 50% of the sale of these sculptures will go to Art Revolution.
If you’d like to catch some of Nathan’s work in person, check out his show schedule here. If you want to find out more about how to help with his Art Revolution charity, start with this link.
