By JULIE CARLE
BG Independent News
Ella Ramsey is an artist in many art forms—from traditional to digital and two-dimensional to three-dimensional.
Ask her what her favorite medium is, and hands down, it’s Lego—those little plastic bricks and pieces that are a bear to step on with bare feet, yet together create masterpieces of creativity and beauty.
The Bowling Green State University senior digital arts major has her sights set on a career at Lego. In the meantime, she is laser-focused on finessing her build skills, deepening her knowledge about the company and improving her Danish to one day work as a set designer in Billund, Denmark, the birthplace and headquarters of the Lego company.
She became enamored with Legos as a child. Her older brother, Tate, “was the one getting the bricks, but I took an interest in it and wanted my own Legos,” she said. “He’s still a big fan, but I’m the one who dedicated myself to Lego.”
The Lego-themed Ninjagos, introduced in Lego sets and an animated TV series in 2011, captured her attention and imagination. Her childhood fascination with the spinning ninja squad that used the fictional Spinjitzu martial arts to fight evil has not waned, but instead has expanded to the art of Lego.
“Ninjago is kind of the whole reason I fell in love with Lego,” she said. “The dragons and cool characters got me invested and cemented me loving Lego forever.”
She has grown to understand Lego building goes beyond “leg godt,” the Danish words for “play well.” Ramsey learned that Legos make her think critically as she designs her own “great big 3D puzzles” to create something she likes. “They allow me to build anything from a dragon to a pizza restaurant,” she said.
Today, Ramsey also uses Lego pieces to build sets as reference images for tricky angles when drawing and to create stop-motion animation, which will be a major part of her senior thesis in the spring BFA show and her honors college capstone project.
Her digital art major provides solid, foundational experiences, yet she has taken many 3-D classes and is currently in a furniture class “learning how the structure works to help me to understand how to connect Lego sets better,” she said. “It’s fun to be more hands-on and not just working on a screen the whole time.”
Her college classes in the BGSU School of Art have given her new skills to build upon; however, she knows if her Lego dream is ever to become a reality, she has much more to learn.
Hilty Travel ‘Reward’
Early on, Ramsey knew she wanted and needed to study the designs of Lego professionals. Sitting in a classroom or reading books wouldn’t give her the depth of knowledge she aspired to.
“I wanted to learn what truly makes a Lego model great according to the company’s standards,” she said. “I knew I would learn best through visual observation.”
When the School of Art’s Medici Circle announced plans to award Hilty Travel Awards early in 2024, Ramsey applied and crossed her fingers to be able to visit Billund, Denmark, where Lego originated.
Her application was compelling, creative and earned her the award. The award advanced her journey to see everything Lego and learn from the experience.
Her brother and parents accompanied her on the trip, where they stayed for three days in Billund. They explored Legoland Village, the first Legoland resort that was built in the 1960s; Lego House; and the iconic Lego headquarters.
Seeing the Denmark Lego campuses exceeded her expectations, from the moment they arrived at the Ninjago cabin, where they stayed for three days, to the awe-inspiring Lego House with its four-story Tree of Creativity that starts on the ground floor and “grows” all the way to the fourth floor Lego Masterworks Gallery.
Legoland memories
Legoland is huge and includes rides that look like Lego designs; Miniland, a 20-million Lego bricks replica built in miniature; and plenty of hands-on activities for Lego lovers of all ages.
“Miniland was probably the most memorable for me” and where she spent the most time studying the different architectural features, giant palaces and the tallest buildings in the world, all with different techniques, Ramsey said.
“I studied the rear end of an elephant sculpture just to see what parts they used to make it rounded,” she said. “It was insane how cool it was and how they integrate it all.”
She was able to get close enough to touch to most of the sculptures, though she opted to take pictures to record how the structures were assembled.
Among her memories was how much calmer the Danish theme park was compared to American parks.
“That was more my speed. I’m not too big on crazy places,” she said. “I was just absorbing as much information as I could” to build her skills for her March presentation and for her future.
She marveled at an aquarium that had Lego models underwater with real fish interacting with the creations. “It was interesting to see how versatile Lego could be,” Ramsey said. “The experience was like walking through the history of Lego while having fun at the same time.”
Lego House: ‘A whole other level’
The Lego House offered many of the same lessons on Day 2 of their trip, highlighting the creativity and innovation that is the cornerstone of the Lego brand. “It was interesting to see how Lego is really all about being innovative in forms of play and overall experience,” she said. “Billund kicked it up to a whole other level compared to the other places I’ve visited.”
At Lego House, visitors look at the creations, but more importantly there are countless hands-on experiences from the basement where there was a museum to the rooftop lookout to see the Lego headquarters that is a mile away.
The Lego Masterworks Gallery on the top floor of the building featured creations from people around the world. She was excited to see a model displayed in the gallery that she had seen a few weeks prior at the Chicago Lego Convention.
“It was very inspirational reaffirming how it is such a groundbreaking company,” she said. The company has expanded the toy experience from kids to adults, and moved on to multimedia with video games, television shows and movies.
Throughout the trip, Ramsey was impressed at how everything was cohesive and integrated so well. “It inspired me as an artist to make cohesive work like that.”
Putting it all together
Immersing herself in Lego was a magical experience. She gained a lot of insight into the expectations of the company and has a better understanding about some of the techniques needed “to kick my design elements to the next level.”
She isn’t swayed from pursuing a career with Lego; she just knows there may be other jobs in the meantime before she is Lego-ready. Ramsey applied for a spring internship with Lego, but knows if that doesn’t come to fruition, she will try to find an artistic and design-based job in the state to “get some more experience under my belt while self-studying and continuing to go to Lego conventions to learn from others who are passionate and have a lot of skills,” she said.
“I need to keep my options open for any chance to get my foot in the door. So that’s why I’ve kind of tried to develop a very versatile skillset,” she said. “Lego represents what art means to me—imagination, creativity and most importantly fun.”
