Sean Kenney puts the finishing touches on his peacock sculpted from Legos
that will be part of the display at Mounts Botanical Garden in West Palm Beach.
Photos provided
INSET BELOW: One whimsical piece shows a hummingbird sipping nectar.
By Janis Fontaine
Mounts Botanical Garden is abuzz with excitement and activity as the staff prepares to welcome a group of construction experts who will install the 14-acre garden’s next exhibit.
It’s no easy task: It involves setting up 13 vignettes of 15 huge sculptures throughout the West Palm Beach garden. The sculptures — including a bee and a butterfly, a corn spider and peacock — are made entirely out of Legos. Yes, Legos.
Nearly half a million of those sturdy plastic bricks kids love — and parents hate to step on in the dark — have been transformed into garden-themed plants, animals and insects by New York artist Sean Kenney.
In addition to building objects from Legos, Kenney has written eight inspirational children’s books.
But it’s more than child’s play to him.
“I like to think that what I create is more than just a bunch of pieces pressed together in the right way,” Kenney told Mike Doyle in Doyle’s book Beautiful LEGO. “My sculptures need to be rooted in personal expression and have some kind of educational or artistic value.” Visitors apparently agree. People who love Legos have been showing up in record numbers to see the exhibition since it debuted in 2012. Attendance rates have increased by about 25 percent at the venues that have hosted it. Kenney has extended the exhibit’s tour until 2019 because of the demand.
This is Kenney’s third update to the installation, called Nature Connects, which was built specifically to be displayed in a garden or arboretum.
Rochelle Wolberg, the program coordinator at Mounts Botanical Garden, has been focused on bringing this popular exhibit to South Florida since she started at Mounts about a year ago.
“This is our first truly blockbuster exhibit,” Wolberg said by phone between meetings. “We really want to get all the details correct.”
For the first time ever, through a partnership with The Lord’s Place, they’ll be serving food during this exhibit. Wolberg is thinking ahead about what to do with the increase in garbage and the million other behind-the-scene details you’ll never notice if she and her team do their jobs.
These pieces originally took Kenney and his team nearly six months to build; hundreds of hours of work went into each one. The peacock, the most intricate, took 625 hours to build. So when a parent plopped a toddler on the bison sculpture for a photo, gardens realized they would have to hire bodyguards for the pieces. Security, never really an issue at Mounts before, is an issue now.
Wolberg says the garden will hire around 30 full and part-time employees including two dozen people to handle admissions and memberships. They also plan to hire two additional gardeners, another janitor, an extra retail person for the bookstore plus two or three security people.
Mounts hopes the exhibit will increase garden attendance numbers by 25 percent.
After viewing the exhibit, kids will be able to play with about 30,000 Legos in a special play area. But Kenney really hopes that kids go home and dig out their bucket of Legos and build something from their own imagination.
Several special events that stimulate creativity are tied to the exhibit. Currently, children and teens are challenged to construct an original garden-themed holiday ornament out of Legos — suggestions include a flower, plant, insect, animal or gardening tool. Finalists will be invited to hang their ornaments at a special public event on Dec. 5. Drop yours off by Nov. 25.
A corporate Lego brick-building challenge pits teams of locals against each other. They must build a sculpture from scratch, on the spot, around a particular theme and with a limited number of Legos.
You can even become part of the exhibition as a volunteer, Wolberg said. Call 233-1757 to find out how.
Or support the garden and get free admission to the exhibit and Mounts’ other programs by becoming a member: A yearlong family membership is only $75. Single memberships are $50 per year.
EXHIBIT DETAILS
Total Legos: 464,770
Most intricate piece: Peacock
Longest to build: Peacock (68,827 pieces)
Tallest sculpture: Hummingbird. (31,565 Lego bricks)
Longest sculpture: Dragonfly
Smallest sculpture: Bonsai tree
Heaviest sculpture: Polar bear mother and cubs (more than 500 pounds)
Sean’s Lego collection: More than 5 million
Sean’s chronological age: 39
Sean’s age at heart: 12
IF YOU GO
What: Nature Connects
Where: Mounts Botanical Garden, 531 N. Military Trail, West Palm Beach
When: Nov. 14-Feb. 16
Hours: 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday; noon to 4 p.m. Sunday Admission: $10 adults; $7 for seniors, veterans and students; $5 ages 3-12. Free for members and ages 2 and younger. Individual garden tours, $15.
Info: 233-1757; www.mounts.org
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