LEGO Artist Helps Kids Let Go And Explore Their Own Creativity

“Who’s ready to build some LEGOs?” asked Sean Kenney, the world’s first LEGO Certified Professional, to fifty eager kids at the in the White Hills Shopping Center Saturday morning. He was answered with a cry of enthusiasm and creativity as kids spent the next hour diving into about 25,000 LEGOs, piecing together creations sprung from their own mind, rather than a LEGO instruction booklet.

When the day was through, LEGO buildings, robots, cars, spaceships and even a LEGO Titanic lined the back shelves of the work area dubbed, for that day, as the Wall of Fame.

“An artist might paint with paint,” said Kenney, “I do it with LEGOs.”

As the kids crowded around each table, building their work piece by piece, Kenney walked from table to table, showing the kids new and innovative ways to use the pieces, including a small piece he loved because when twisted around, it allowed you to build LEGOs sideways instead of simply up.

“It was a great opportunity,” said Andy Keith of Shelton, who brought his two sons out to the event. “The kids seemed to have a great time,” said Keith.

Kenney, a “micro-celebrity in the LEGO world,” spent time with each kid, talking with them about their creation before finding a space for it along the wall. “I get a lot of crayon fan mail,” said Kenney.

“If The Wiggles are the Beatles for little kids, he’s the Michelangelo for kids,” said David Broder, one of the owners of Written Words Bookstore. “I don’t think we’ve had this many kids in the store since Harry Potter,” said Broder.

Kenney has been playing with LEGOs since he was two years old, taking his entire collection with him to college, where he and his engineer roommates would toy around with the building blocks. It wasn’t until 2001, however, that Kenney made his hobby into his life by walking out of his technology job at Lehman Brothers.

“I took off my pager and ID and just left,” said Kenney.

Kenney now makes his way both as an artist and an author, having penned two children’s books, “Cool Robots” and “Cool Cars and Trucks,” which forego step-by-step blueprints in favor of inspiring the kids to figure out how to build the creations themselves.

“Inspiration for creativity,” said Kenney, “this is what LEGO is all about.”

“It doesn’t matter what the picture is on the box,” said Broder, “the real key to the LEGO thing is using your own creativity to build something unique.”

Kenney will be heading to Madrid later this year when his exhibit “Creatures of Habitat” goes on display in Spain. “LEGO knows no cultural or national boundaries,” he said.

The exhibit features 30 life-sized endangered animals made of LEGOs and was commissioned by the Philadelphia Zoo. One of the animals was a LEGO polar bear composed of over 95,000 pieces and took him and 5 assistants 1,100 hours to complete, according to his website.

Kenney has also had his work on display at the Empire State Building, the Google offices in New York and Copenhagen, and at FAO Schwartz in New York, which was a large model of Batman built by Kenney, a LEGO employee, and about a hundred or more kids, according to Kenney.

Kenney is not an employee of LEGO, but said he maintains a good working relationship with them, which allows him to buy specific pieces in bulk, rather than tear apart 90 kits of the same police station to get enough of the right part.