Man can’t Lego obsession

Heath Carr received his first Lego set for Christmas in 1976.

Now, at 37, he has a massive Lego collection insured for $75,000 in his Spokane home, all organized by color and size in 48 10-gallon tubs.

“They are a toy that I’ve been playing with for 30 years,” Carr said. “You create your own world; you create your own city.”

Carr’s world these days is filled with intricate sculptures and murals comprising sometimes thousands of plastic Lego pieces – art that takes hours, sometimes months, to construct with the help a computer.

Look around Carr’s living room and you’ll see a Lego mural of the “Lion King” program resting on a homemade art easel. On the walls of his rec room hang 32-inch-wide pieces of Lego art featuring the logos of the Spokane Chiefs hockey team, Spokane Indians baseball team and the Indians’ mascot, Otto.

He also has a 6-foot-wide mural of a Lilac City logo made of Legos that he created for a Web site that never took hold.

Most of Carr’s collection is stored in the basement of his home near the North Division “Y.” His latest project is a New York City landscape that spreads across three downstairs bedrooms and accommodates eight Lego trains. The project is 10 years in the making, and the completion date remains uncertain.

Carr’s collection started small. Growing up in Stockton, Calif., he would ask for simple Lego sets, which come with directions for building specific projects. As his skills developed, Carr didn’t need directions – he looked at pictures and figured out how to duplicate them.

“If I look at that picture and figure it out,” he said, referring to the “Lion King” program, “then I can look at a picture of anything and figure it out. It’s all trial and error.”

When building a mural, Carr scans the picture into his computer and turns it into a mosaic image. He then runs the image through a program that turns it into a cross-stitch pattern, revealing the colors in block form. Carr then looks at the image and, starting from the bottom and working up, pieces together a 32-inch-wide mural.

In his “spare” time, Carr is a full-time letter carrier for the U.S. Postal Service. He’s also a seasonal employee for Brett Sports of Spokane, working the electronic scoreboard at Indians games during the summer. For five years before that, he was Otto, the Indians’ mascot, a job he liked because “you can act like you’re a 12-year-old and nobody knows it’s you.”

Some say Carr’s having a hard time letting go of his childhood. Even his girlfriend makes fun of him.

“I get teased all the time about the kid that will never grow up,” said Carr, who wears a necklace with a Lego man figure attached. “I’m a 37-year-old 12-year-old.”

There is one person who does not give Carr any grief: his mother.

“I think it’s fantastic,” Carolyne Carr said, “to do something you like, and other people enjoy it.”

While her son collects Legos, Carolyne has thousands of Barbie dolls and Christmas decorations, including eight fully decorated Christmas trees in her Stockton home that never come down.

“He gets his collection obsessiveness naturally,” she said.

Carolyne still buys Legos for her son.

They both receive Lego catalogs at their homes, and around Christmastime Heath gives his mother the page numbers of items that he wants. Carolyne ships the Legos to Spokane, and Heath wraps them and puts them under his Christmas tree.

Three months ago, the two traveled to Legoland in Carlsbad, Calif. “People as into Lego as I am have to go to Legoland,” Heath said. “It’s just incredible.

“It’s a whole amusement park geared toward younger kids as far as the rides are concerned, but as adults we had a lot of fun.”

People often have asked the Lego architect why he doesn’t sell his models or get a job with the Lego company. Carr’s response: “If I had to spend six to 10 hours a day, every day, after a while it would feel like a job, not something I do for fun.”

Heath’s parents had suggested he consider a career in architecture, and he took some courses in junior high and high school that taught design. But after graduation, Heath said he needed a break, so he joined the Air Force.

“Before I knew it, it was 10 years later and now 20 years later, and I’ve still never gone back to school,” he said.

Heath has entered his murals into art shows. One appeared on the Rosie O’Donnell’s talk show. A mural of a balloon has been placed in a Spokane-area children’s hospital.

The artist keeps a notebook of plans, details and pictures of his projects just in case he wants to build a piece again. Now Carolyne is waiting for baseball season to end. She’s been longing for a coffee cup mural.

“Him and I both like our toys,” she said.