Lego of ‘Dallas’? Never!

To mark Linda Gray’s birthday today, I’m unveiling a project that’s near and dear to my heart: a portrait of Sue Ellen Ewing that my husband, Andrew, created using his childhood Legos.

No, really.

It began when Andrew and I spent several weeks this winter cleaning out the Oregon home where he grew up. It was a trying time in more ways than one, especially when Andrew had to crawl into a hot, dusty attic to rescue the Legos that his parents had stuffed into a corner and covered with insulation.

After we shipped the Legos to our home in Washington, D.C., Andrew — looking for a way to unwind after all that work we did out west — decided to use the tiny plastic bricks to honor our favorite “Dallas” leading lady.

Don’t ask me how he came up with this concept, but he used a software program to digitize a glamour shot of Gray during her “Dallas” years, then he recreated that image with Legos. He affixed the bricks to six plates that, when joined together, form a complete picture.

Andrew devoted many hours to this labor of love, and the end result is totally rad: a portrait of one of the biggest stars of the 1980s, rendered to look like a computer graphic from that era, and built using a toy that many of us who grew up watching “Dallas” played with at the time.

The portrait — which is 45 inches by 30 inches — is now framed and hanging in our guest bedroom, where Sue Ellen watches over everyone who comes to stay with us.

So happy birthday, darlin’, and thanks for inspiring my husband, me, and “Dallas” fans everywhere.

Always a work in progress