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PinoyLUG Ambassador Leslie Araujo, with one of the three mosaics built for Project AMORsolo, Dalagang Bukid.
Project AMORsolo: From Canvas to Bricks
Article and Photography by PinoyLUG Ambassador Leslie Araujo
To open the Project AMORsolo display, PinoyLUG Ambassador Leslie Araujo gave the following speech. Magandang Hapon at Maraming Salamat po sa inyong lahat. Please allow me to tell you the story of Project AMORsolo. It all started with a dream. In 2017, when I was privileged to visit the LEGO® House in Billund, Denmark before it formally opened to the public, I was amazed by the awesome exhibits I saw there and was stunned beyond words. Each country chosen to participate in the exhibit had magnificent displays of their LEGO® creations, and I was filled with admiration and envy. How could we, still a fledgling, loose association of LEGO® enthusiasts trying to weave our way into the international arena, make the grade? We were not even the first LEGO® Users Group (LUG) to be recognized by the LEGO® Ambassadors Network (LAN). My own group, PinoyLUG was already a trailblazer in the toy community, but so were all the other much older LUGs of the world. And we were all just creating, building, innovating, and having fun. The dream was to have an awesome display from the Philippines that LEGO® fans all over the world would be talking about. It will be one that speaks of our historical legacy as a nation—a creation that reflects our traits as a people— generous and helpful, gracious and beautiful. We needed to be more—as the LEGO creed goes, “LEGO® beyond play. Beyond what it is known for.” In 2021, during the desolate hours of a second pandemic lockdown, when everyone turned to family as a source of comfort, memories of my departed father came to haunt me. It was him, the source of my strength and inspiration, who has been driving me to achieve much more than I am able to accomplish. For him, I dedicated PinoyLUG’s BrickRunPh—a full range LEGO®- themed fun run with over 3,000 runners participating. It was the first of its kind to be produced and conducted by a LEGO® Users Group in Southeast Asia that was officially supported by LEGO®. Looking back at all the families during that fun run, I think I missed my dad more than I ever did since we lost him. Searching for mementos from my dad, in the same house where he and my grandparents and my great grandparents had lived before I was born, I found his collection of postcards with prints of Amorsolo’s paintings. Everyone in my father’s family was a fan of the great painter. When I was growing up, I would hear them talk about how the old man used to come and visit my great-grandparents, who were both painters like him. In fact, my great-grandmother was one of his students at UP. I guess my father had hopes that one of his children would be an artist inspired by Fernando Amorsolo. I looked at the prints on those postcards closely, and then the spark of an idea came to me. This was going to be PinoyLUG’s next big project, the biggest and most challenging one. My LEGO® family would work together to fulfill the dream, based on the legacy of a great Filipino artist. At PinoyLUG, we work together as one. Therefore, I am confident that the vision I have of continuing the legacy of Fernando Amorsolo is appreciated and shared by the group. In fact, we have made it happen. Each participant in Project AMORsolo has accomplished his mission with pride. Each piece of brick that they have put together are
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