Sculpture | statue:Mario Lego Sculpture

LEGO bricks are not just for kids. The construction sets made by the largest toy company in the world have attracted a growing number of adult builders who find joy in building large objects of tiny bricks. Known as AFOLs (adult fans of LEGOs), these grown-ups spend hours assembling large sets sold by LEGO (Imperial Star Destroyer, 3,104 pieces; Tower Bridge 4,287 pieces) or design their own massive sculptures with plans they have devised on computers. Some AFOLs estimate that they account for about half of LEGOs sales, though the toy maker does not track purchases in any way to verify the claim. Given that some adult LEGO creations require hundreds of thousands of bricks, the estimate may be plausible. Although purchased as a completed sculpture, the 30-inch figure of Nintendo's Mario arrived at The Strong Museum in pieces. Collection team member Bethany Mosher reconfigured and reassembled the 6,500 pieces of the hero of Donkey Kong brick by tiny brick in about 45 hours.