The Seattle Times
January 2005
By Emily Heffter

Nathan Sawaya is a 31-year-old New York City lawyer who didn't know just how good he was with Legos until he entered a build-off last year at the Legoland amusement park in Carlsbad, Calif.

Before then, he had done most of his Lego building alone: first as a 3-year-old in his parents' Olympia living room, later in his law-school dorm room at New York University and in his New York City apartment.

Then he went up against the nation's best Lego artists last year and won the contest with his depiction of two Lego people.

A year later, he's building a side business out of playing with the little plastic blocks. He's now taking time off from his law job to build a 10-foot model of a speedboat at the Seattle Boat Show, in an attempt to set a Guinness world record for the biggest Lego boat in history.

For 14 hours a day, he will pop the tiny blocks into place, building the boat's curved hull and rotating beige bucket seats.

The real boat — a 19-foot Chris-Craft Speedster — is on display nearby. Sawaya's model will include a propeller that really spins and a steering wheel that really turns.

Boat show President Michael Campbell saw Sawaya on a television news program and tracked him down.

"He's a hoot," Campbell said. "It's kind of fun just to do wacky things in this world."

Sawaya spent about 80 hours before the show designing the boat on graph paper and building a foot-long model on which to base the full-sized version.

Sawaya said he often works on Lego projects for six hours after he gets home from the law office. "It's such a release because during the day, you have the stresses of everyday life," he said. "It's my passion. I love creating. It doesn't feel like two jobs."

He also made a poster-size, one-dimensional Seattle skyscape out of Legos before his trip. The piece is for sale at his booth for $1,100.

He's begun selling a lot of his pieces, he said. His Web site, www.brickartist.com, has pictures of his favorite creations, including a black-and-white self-portrait and a 7-foot model of the Brooklyn Bridge.

"I just think some people can't believe it's a real career," he said.

The boat show is having a contest to see who can guess how many Legos it will take to build the Chris-Craft model.

Sawaya will say only that it's hundreds of thousands, and that he expects to use about $10,000 in supplies.

For all the painstaking work it will take to complete the project — already Sawaya's hands are scratched from the sharp little edges — Campbell doesn't know what will become of the creation once it's finished.

Most likely it will be disassembled, the pieces sold to another trade show that could hire Sawaya to build it all over again.

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