Friday April 11th, I had the honor and privilege of being a guest speaker for Fine Arts Day at John Beck Elementary School in Lititz, PA. Throughout the day I gave slideshow demonstrations to the kids of my best original LEGO creations, videos, and photos, and then demonstrated my techniques for making pop-art painting designs inspired by LEGO toys. Finally I gave out my sticker designs to each student – and I even autographed some!
So here’s how it all started: as I’ve mentioned previously, back in late 2023 I began an ongoing guerilla art project of creating mixed-media LEGO-inspired art pieces to distribute for free around my hometown of Lancaster, PA. This project has gained me a cult following in Central PA, and this would gain the attention of an art teacher at an elementary school in Lititz, PA. I met with this teacher, and she and discussed the possibility of having me be a guest speaker at her school some time in 2025.
When spring 2025 came around, I gathered my gear and drove to Lancaster for the weekend to take part in the event. I brought with me my laptop filled with slideshow images of my best LEGO creations, as well as my art supplies to demonstrate my exact techniques for creative design. The plan was for me to devote an entire classroom to give quick 30-minute demos on my background and art styles, and to cycle through each grade of kids one at a time.
On the morning of Friday April 11th, 2025 I gave it my all and began my first demonstration of my designs to a group of kids. This was my first time as a guest speaker for any reason, so I had to just play everything by ear. I began with going through slideshow images of my LEGO creations by hooking my laptop up to a giant TV screen, and I would cycle through each image to gauge the reactions of the kids. For example, when obvious recognizable licensed characters Super like Mario would show up in the slideshow, the kids would all chant, “WHOAAAAA, MARIO!”, but when more obscure creations would appear, I would ask students to raise their hand if they could guess the character.
It was interesting gauging the reactions to my creations from the different age groups. The older students (5th and 6th graders) were very impressed with a lot of my specific LEGO creations inspired by video games, movies, and anime. For example, one particular moment I was proud of was when I showed off my Ghostbusters Ecto-1 outdoor photo, and some little boy raised his hand and correctly identified the name of the car in the movie! Another thing that happened which I’m very proud of was before the start of a lecture when a little girl walked up to me and handed me one of my discovered mixed-media paintings along with a marker, and asked me to please autograph it for her. From what I learned was that her mother discovered the painting attached to the back of a road sign in Lititz, so she found it and gave it to her daughter.
After each lecture, I’d allow the kids to help themselves to stickers I’ve designed. This also helped me gauge which of my designs were the most popular; most of the kids preferred designs of my LEGO astronauts. A lot of the older boys even asked for me to autograph their stickers.
I’ll admit that I had trouble sleeping the night before the event due to stress and anxiety from the preparation, so I looked a bit tired and disheveled in the photos of me speaking. Nonetheless, I managed to stay awake and fully-charged thanks to Red Bull.
Sleepy Baron shows off his stainless steel stencils.
The best part though was when I got to see some the artwork made by students at the school prior to my arrival: for you see, these kids were instructed to create their own designs inspired by my style of making fluid paint pours accompanied by illustrations of LEGO minifigures! As you can see in these photos, these are some select pieces of art made by students at the school – all of which were directly inspired by design style. The images seen below were all created by students who were inspired by my design techniques:
After the event concluded, I gave the school several of my larger minifigure paintings as a gift to the school:
I want to give a big thanks to the staff and volunteers of John Beck Elementary, as well as the other talented artists and performers who were guests at the event. At the time of this post, I’ve made arrangements to be a guest speaker for another fine arts day at a different elementary school in Lititz, PA in spring 2026. Stay tuned for the nuttiness.