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New Brunswick ‘Lego Girl’ hopes to build a career making art

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New Brunswick ‘Lego Girl’ hopes to make career out of art
A young woman from New Brunswick is making a name for herself on the world stage as a master of Lego art. Shelley Steeves has her story. – Oct 10, 2023

A young woman from New Brunswick is making a name for herself on the world stage as a master of tiny coloured blocks many people played with as kids.

Faith Howe climbs down from her loft bed in Burton, N.B., and steps into a world of endless possibilities and creativity.

“I feel like I always have to have my brain going. I always have to be thinking of new ideas,” said Howe, who has become known as the “Lego Girl.”

Howe’s room is packed floor to ceiling with hundreds of thousands of perfectly organized Lego pieces housed among stunning works of art that she has pieced together one tiny block at a time.

“I have it organized by part type and colour,” Howe, 21, said.

She said she got her first Lego kit at 14 — and a passion was born.

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Howe is now working on producing people’s portraits out of Lego blocks. She said she takes photographs that she pixelized to help her develop a pattern for the blocks.

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“I have done some pieces for commission,” she said.

Portrait made by Howe using Lego pieces. Shelley Steeves/Global New

Her mother, Cindy Howe, said she is amazed by her daughter’s talents.

“I don’t know where she is getting this gift that she has but it is fascinating to sit and watch her,” she said.

Howe, who has autism, is laser-focused when she creates her one-of-a-kind Lego pieces, some with intricate moving sprockets she’s able to envision in her mind. The days of building a prepared kit are long behind her.

“It is good for her mental health. It gives her focus,” her mother said.

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It’s a focus she used to earn herself a Guinness World record this summer, “for the world’s largest Lego brick playing card,” Howe said. The Lego card was 12 feet one inch by six-and-a-half feet and was built at the Fredericton Public Library.

Howe said her ultimate goal is to turn her passion for Lego into a career.

“It is a little harder when you are in Canada,” her mother said.

But she’s on her way. Howe was already been recognized for her talents when she visited Lego headquarters overseas said her mother.

“She has two pieces on display at Lego house in Denmark,” Cindy said.

Howe said she puts her heart into every piece, including a self-portrait she made of her and her pet cat.

Even though her creativity is to a degree bound by the limitation of the blocks, “I find that with these boundaries the imagination actually thrives.”

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