ESTEVAN - People in the Estevan area had the opportunity to see what can be created using Lego during the Saskatchewan Lego Users' Group's (SLUG) annual Brickery event Saturday at the Estevan 60-and-over Club's facility.
Chris Ursu, an Estevan man who organizes Brickery each year with his wife Jillian, said they had approximately 15 Lego builders from all over Saskatchewan. Exhibitors needed anywhere from one to three tables to showcase what they had constructed.
"It's looking great, and a wonderful collection of different imaginations and creations," said Ursu in an interview with the Mercury and Â鶹ÊÓƵ.
Hundreds of people, including the exhibitors, turned out for the event, and Ursu said the crowd size was typical. The public saw what is possible with Lego bricks.
"It's a chance to inspire and show our own creativity and get together as a club and visit," said Ursu.
Some of the displays can be completed in an evening while others needed a few months, he said. It comes down to the size of the project, motivation and the way the builder works. The displays created in Estevan stem from imagination and would not have a set of instructions like what people would get with a Lego kit when they were children.
"The pieces come from sets that you would buy in the store, but they are reimagined and changed," said Ursu. "A lot of the SLUG members have collections that are sorted into bins and drawers."
He has seen an increase in people getting into Lego crafting since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
"A lot of people were looking for things to do, going out to the store, finding a Lego set, ordering it online and realizing 'Hey, this is kind of fun.' I know we have a few builders in the group where having that downtime with COVID really inspired them, and they built more in the last few years than they ever have before," said Ursu.
He was particularly impressed with mosaic Lego displays of Darth Maul, Bob Ross and others, as those stood out and grabbed people's attention.
Ursu gained his interested in Lego a long time ago. When he was in high school, he became friends with a fellow Lego aficionado, who was among those in attendance for Brickery.
"He continued building off and on, and it inspired me. When I moved out and had my own place … I was playing around with Lego sets, and it led to this. And then it inspired my wife to join as well, and that seems to be the story of a lot of people. They rediscovered it as they got older as a thing to do and to show creativity," said Ursu.
There will be another gathering in White City in December that Ursu said will be similar to the one in Estevan.
