Strange creatures in the woods

Neither of us has been to a Legoland park, so we went to see Some Assembly Required, a display of artist Sean Kenney's Lego sculptures made from over 500,000 Lego bricks at the North Carolina Arboretum on Friday. There are 15 displays with 27 sculptures scattered about the gardens near the main parking and visitor centers.

Our first stop was with the Bison - if you look very closely at the back end of the Mama Bison (click the photos for a larger image), you'll see she's carrying a small rider. We'll see more like the rider in a later exhibit.

This is an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail.

We don't know how the hummingbird defies gravity in this piece.

We had to show this lawnmower - Norris walked right by it not realizing it was one of the displays.

A few pieces, like this bee, were indoors.

 

Just outside was a bird feeder with four gold finches. We chose this close up view that cuts out the bird on top of the feeder to show the sunflower seed was also Lego pieces.

This life-sized garden worker is made of over 37,000 Lego bricks - and several of the sculptures contained thousands more than that.

 

Since Cheryl made Norris and his family pose in a scene like this one, she knelt down to be the gardener in this mosaic.

Inside the exhibit hall, the Arboretum is showing the entries in their Lego Brick Building Competition. Entrants aged from 3 to adult. This ribbon-winning fire hydrant near the entrance grabbed Norris' attention....

... particularly when he saw the little firefighter posed with the ladder in front of him talking into a little portable radio.

 Norris has spent a lot of hours since late summer working with the County Fire Departments on a large portable and mobile radio procurement. That job just ended earlier in the week.