It’s a big photo essay today, as we explore Charles’ construction capabilities.
First up is a couch based construction.
This is a truck. As turns out, it’s a swim team truck that goes to swim meets, which are either a long way away or in Chicago. The cup on the side is a critical component. Charles knocked it off as he was getting in the truck in response to a request for a photo and I had to wait for him to carefully replace it, including rotating it so that the handle was in the correct position. In the back you can see the “fuel box” that helps the truck go. This in itself was a large Duplo construct which lasted for several days before it was Aliced. I have a video of Charles explaining the truck and its features, which is unfortunately too large to upload as it runs for about a minute and a half now available.
The next construction is a combination car pile and parking lot.
In addition to the two big piles of cars, there’s a well built parking lot with parked cars at the top and the line of small plastic sample cups on top and right as well. Charles’ explanation for the arrangement involved a journey to the various places on the map, including a stop in Canada for cheese.
This construct is more of a performance effort.
I’ve highlighted in green the threads of tape going from the rocking chair to various locations as otherwise they’re difficult to see. Charles didn’t have an explanation for this one which is why I think it was about the taping more than the result.
Getting back to the couch theme, we have
This was a variant of Charles’ office, except this time it was a teacher’s desk at school. I was particularly impressed by Charles’ web of scotch tape on the right. It’s not actually on the couch but free standing in front of it. At various times Charles would insist that I needed to go to school (“every day!”) and therefore should sit in the chair facing the couch to be lectured at by Charles on important subjects. Charles would sit behind the red block with ready access to his pad of paper and empowering Duplo construct.
Finally we have some work by Charles with standard Legos.
He built this house, along with a vehicle that gradually morphed from an airplane loading ramp to a large bus, getting bigger and more elaborate with each change. The construction of these artifacts was a very emotional experience for Charles, who frequently collapsed in tears when the pieces wouldn’t behave as he wanted. As the building is hollow, the roof in particular was the source of much anguish. Yet he persevered to realize his vision.
This is only a sampling of the various efforts by Charles, but should provide a reasonably good feel for the kind of work that he does. Please enter any bids for future works in the comments.