Elbe Spurling

(Brendan Powell Smith redirects here)

Elbe Spurling

Elbe Spurling, author and artist

Spurling in March 2023

Born September 7, 1973 (age 49)

Occupation Artist, Author

Medium LEGO illustration, Books

Genre Religion, History

Notable Works The Brick Bible
The Brick Bible for Kids
The Brick Chronicle

Publisher(s) Skyhorse Publishing, Sky Pony Press, Quirk Books

Nationality American

Alma mater Boston University

Home town Norwood, Massachusetts

Years active 2001 – present

Elbe Spurling (/ ‘ɛlbi ‘spərlIng /; born September 7, 1973) is an American author and artist best known for her epic 12-year, one-woman project to illustrate the entire Bible in LEGO building blocks. First launched as a website in the early 2000s, this endeavor spawned The Brick Bible book series (published under her birth name Brendan Powell Smith) with 19 titles to date, published in 10 languages, with over a quarter million books in print.

Although not religious, Spurling received a BA in Philosophy & Religion from Boston University, and has continued her study of the Bible, ancient Christianity and Judaism throughout her life. Spurling has stated that she is motivated by the belief that all people, believers or not, are better off knowing the content of the scriptures. Her unique storytelling and illustrating style is renown for meticulous attention to detail, sense of whimsy, and the ability to intertwine humor and poignancy. 

Soon after publicly coming out as transgender in 2015, Spurling also began creating art pop music under the artist name ɘlbe, releasing her debut LP gɘtting thɘre in fall 2016. Her latest major LEGO-illustration project is The Brick Book of Mormon in which she presents the history and teachings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  In summer of 2024, Spurling released her latest history book Salvation: From Ancient Judaism to Christianity Without a Historical Jesus.

Elbe Spurling (/ ‘ɛlbi ‘spərlIng /; born September 7, 1973) is an American author and artist best known for her epic 12-year, one-woman project to illustrate the entire Bible in LEGO building blocks. First launched as a website in the early 2000s, this endeavor spawned The Brick Bible book series (published under her birth name Brendan Powell Smith) with 19 titles to date, published in 10 languages, with over a quarter million books in print.

Although not religious, Spurling received a BA in Philosophy & Religion from Boston University, and has continued her study of the Bible, ancient Christianity and Judaism throughout her life. Spurling has stated that she is motivated by the belief that all people, believers or not, are better off knowing the content of the scriptures. Her unique storytelling and illustrating style is renown for meticulous attention to detail, sense of whimsy, and the ability to intertwine humor and poignancy. 

Soon after publicly coming out as transgender in 2015, Spurling also began creating art pop music under the artist name ɘlbe, releasing her debut LP gɘtting thɘre in fall 2016. Her latest major LEGO-illustration project is The Brick Book of Mormon in which she presents the history and teachings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In summer of 2024, Spurling released her latest history book Salvation: From Ancient Judaism to Christianity Without a Historical Jesus.

Elbe Spurling

Elbe Spurling, author and artist

Spurling in March 2023

Born September 7, 1973 (age 50)

Occupation Artist, Author

Medium LEGO illustration, Books

Genre Religion, History

Notable Works The Brick Bible
The Brick Bible for Kids
The Brick Chronicle

Publisher(s) Skyhorse Publishing, Sky Pony Press, Quirk Books

Nationality American

Alma mater Boston University

Home town Norwood, Massachusetts

Years active 2001 – present

Early Life

Elbe Spurling was born in 1973 in Norwood, Massachusetts, a suburb south of Boston, where she grew up in poor neighborhood known as “the projects”. Spurling’s favorite toy as a child was LEGO, though she was, by her own estimation, no building prodigy in her youth. She was raised as a Protestant Christian in the Episcopal Church where her mother was a Sunday School superintendant. At age 13, Spurling entered a phase of her life where she consciously tried to prepare for adulthood by weaning herself off of childhood toys and ways of thinking. Taking a critical look at her own beliefs and behaviors, Spurling’s newfound skeptical outlook was eventually applied to her religious beliefs, and she soon found herself the only atheist in a family, community, and society full of believers. This caused her to become curious why others kept on believing, and began a lifelong fascination with religion.

Spurling graduated from Norwood Senior High School in 1991 and went on to get a degree in Philosophy & Religion from Boston University, studying under professors including noted atheist author Michael Martin and ancient noted Christianity author Paula Fredriksen. While at college, Spurling drew a comic strip called The Second Coming under the pen name “The Reverend” which ran in Boston’s third largest daily paper, The Daily Free Press from 1992 to 1995. The experience of reading through the entire Bible for the first time during college had a major effect on Spurling who found it to be nothing like the dry theological treatise she expected. Its vivid drama, lurid stories, and surprising characterizations of God led Spurling to realize that most people don’t actually read the Bible, and it prompted her belief that it would be a better thing if people were more familiar with its content.

In 1997, Spurling moved to the San Francisco Bay Area. Having developed an irreverent and absurdist writing style in high school and college, Spurling was excited by the creative possibilities of the world wide web. Her first project was a sprawling text-based choose-your-own-adventure for adults, very loosely based on Spurling’s own family members, called BRAD: the game. The player gets to live out a day in the life of Spurling’s weird uncle Brad, and the game features hundreds of different endings as well as a difficult-to-find, impossible-to-beat Hard Mode. The game became a cult hit, especially at many college campuses.

Career

Spurling renewed her interest in building with LEGO at the end of the 90s, buying up used lots on eBay and shopping at discount stores. After tackling some building challenges like an 8-foot tall skyscraper and a Roman colosseum, Spurling had the idea to try out building some scenes from the Bible in LEGO. As she worked on the Garden of Eden, and designed minifigure versions of Adam, Eve, and God, Spurling began to realize that LEGO could be a compelling storytelling medium. Not knowing where it might lead, she built and photographed six stories from the beginning of the book of Genesis and put them online in October of 2001 on a website she called The Brick Testament. The text accompanying each illustration was a direct quote from the Bible, in keeping with Spurling’s goal that people become better acquainted with the Bible’s content as it was written. The website was an instant hit with 20,000 site visits in the first week. The positive reception encouraged Spurling to create more illustrations, delving into the New Testament’s gospels as well as continuing her way through Genesis. By early 2002 the site’s illustrations had been featured in the UK’s Independent on Sunday and SPIN magazine. As Spurling continued to add illustrated Bible stories to the website, its popularity increased, bolstered by continued media interest including Spurling’s LEGO rendition of The Last Supper being featured in Time magazine.

That same year, Spurling worked with Quirk Books to release The Brick Testament: Stories from the Book of Genesis, which was successful enough to prompt follow-up books in 2004 and 2005. The Brick Testament website continued to receive regular updates throughout the first decade of the 2000s, with Spurling illustrating Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, and 1 Kings from the Old Testament, as well as the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, the Epistles, and Revelation in the New Testament. Spurling says her biggest creative challenge was illustrating the wild visual imagery of the Book of Revelation, but notes that it was also the most rewarding to accomplish.

At the start of the 2010s, Spurling began working with Skyhorse Publishing to publish the entire Brick Testament in a single volume. When this was shown to be unfeasible, the plan was altered to release just the Old Testament as a one-volume book. The fall 2011 saw the release The Brick Bible: A New Spin on the Old Testament became Skyhorse Publishing’s best selling book. It was followed a year later with a New Testament volume that included 200 new illustrations created especially for the book. These two hit books were then combined with a bonus poster for release as a hardcover box set in 2013.

The release of the Old Testament book stirred some controversy. Despite strong sales, retailer Sam’s Club pulled the book from its shelves in November 2011, after receiving complaints that the book contained material inappropriate for children. Seeing that there was a significant amount of of interest from parents in a LEGO-illustrated Bible storybooks aimed at younger children, Spurling and Skyhorse Publishing decided to launch a companion series called The Brick Bible for Kids, which has had eleven book releases since 2012, establishing itself as a popular counterpart to original Brick Bible series which was intended for older children, teens, and adults. There are now more than 300,000 Brick Bible books in print.

In 2013, Spurling decided to expand her LEGO illustrating and storytelling repetoire to inculde non-religious topics that have long fascinated her. In fall of that year, she released her first history book, Assassination!: The Brick Chronicle of Attempts on the Lives of Twelve US Presidents. She followed this up with a second book in The Brick Chronicle series called Revolution! which tells the stories of The American Revolution and The French Revolution.

Though illustrating for books takes up the vast majority of Spurling’s time spent with LEGO, she has occasionally taken on small LEGO side projects, including the creation of the popular LEGO pain assessment tool and Beauty Tips for Male LEGO Executives (a response to LEGO including beauty tips aimed at 5 to 12 year old girls in their LEGO Friends line of toy sets.

Most recently, Spurling has begun work on her latest major LEGO-illustration project, The Brick Book of Mormon, in which she presents the history and teachings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Similar to her approach to The Brick Bible, Spurling hopes that presenting the material in a straightforward manner using only quotes from scriptures and teaching materials available on  the church’s official website, the project will appeal to believers and non-believers alike. After spending 6 months researching for the project and another 6 months writing its complete manuscript, now Spurling has begun building scenes in LEGO and photographing them, and is sharing the stories online as they are completed.

After over two decades or reading and analysis on the subject, in summer of 2024, Spurling released her latest history book Salvation: From Ancient Judaism to Christianity Without a Historical Jesus.

Published Books

CoverTitleRelease DatePublisherISBN
The Easter Story: The Brick Bible for Kids2018-01Sky Pony Press1510712771
The Miracles of Jesus2017-09Sky Pony Press1510726977
Baby Moses2016-11Sky Pony Press1510712666
The Complete Brick Bible for Kids (single volume compilation)2015-10Skyhorse Publishing1634502094
The Brick Bible for Kids: The Complete Set (box set of six hardcover books)2015-09Sky Pony Press9781634502085
Joseph and the Colorful Coat: The Brick Bible for Kids2015-04Sky Pony Press1632204096
Revolution!: The Brick Chronicle of the American Revolution and the Inspiring Fight for Liberty and Equality that Shook the World2014-11Skyhorse Publishing1629144614
The Brick Bible Presents Brick Exodus2014-10Skyhorse Publishing1629147672
The Brick Bible Presents Brick Genesis2014-10Skyhorse Publishing1629147680
Daniel in the Lions' Den: The Brick Bible for Kids2014-09Sky Pony Press1629146056
Jonah and the Whale: The Brick Bible for Kids2014-04Sky Pony Press1628735899
Assassination!: The Brick Chronicle of Attempts on the Lives of Twelve US Presidents2013-11Skyhorse Publishing1620879980
The Brick Bible: The Complete Set (box set of two hardcover books)2013-10Skyhorse Publishing1626361770
David and Goliath: The Brick Bible for Kids2013-09Sky Pony Press1620879824
The Christmas Story: The Brick Bible for Kids2012-11Sky Pony Press1620871734
The Brick Bible: The New Testament2012-10Skyhorse Publishing1620871726
Noah's Ark: The Brick Bible for Kids2012-05Sky Pony Press1616087374
The Brick Bible: A New Spin on the Old Testament2011-10Skyhorse Publishing1616084219
The Brick Testament: The Ten Commandments2005-03Quirk Books1594740445
The Brick Testament: The Story of Christmas2004-09Quirk Books1594740127
The Brick Testament: Stories from the Book of Genesis2003-10Quirk Books1931686459

Music Releases

Elbe Spurling wrote and recorded two lo-fi home-recorded solo albums in 1998 and 1999 under her birth name, Brendan Powell Smith. Then in 2001, she joined forces with Lila Tene as The Human Heads, releasing a single album that same year. Putting aside music to focus on her career as an author/illustrator, it was not until late 2014 that Spurling released an EP of new material under the artist name ɘlbe. A seamless series of accompanying music videos for the EP was released in early 2015, and a full debut album in 2016.

CoverArtist NameTitleRelease Date
ɘlbegɘtting thɘre2016-09
ɘlbein betwɘen2014-11
The Human Headshere come the heads2001-02
Brendan Powell SmithLIFE & DEATH1999-11
Brendan Powell SmithIDEAS FOR SONGS1998-10

Other Projects

Just before moving to Califoria, Spurling wrote and co-starred in Vendetta: A Christmas Story. Imagined as the Christmas episode of a gratuitously violent 80s buddy cop TV show, it was filmed over the course of three weeks in Spurling’s home town of Norwood, MA, as well as nearby Walpole, Sharon, and Boston, MA. Part One of the two-part feature was edited in spring 1997 and eventually aired on San Francisco public access TV. In 2000, the feature was nominated for a FiFi award, and director/co-star Jonathan Field was flown to Lille, France for the award ceremony. Editing of Part Two of the feature was completed by Spurling in 2001, and the full feature was then made available online. Field oversaw a program in which, in the Christmas spirit, DVDs of Vendetta were mailed out free of charge to anyone who requested one through the official website. A special AI-upscaled 25th anniversary edition of Vendetta was made available on Youtube for Christmas 2022.

In summer of 2009, Spurling re-watched all 16 episodes of the 1972-1974 mystery TV program Banacek, and immediately set about editing together a video that captured each instance of characters on the show saying the name of the main character, Banacek. She then ordered the hundreds of clips by theme to create the ten minute video My Name Is Banacek, a pioneering work in a genre that would come to be known as the “supercut”.

In 2004 Spurling created a party game in which she prepared hundreds of images of celebrities disguised using various filters, effects, and other tools. She hosted a party in which, attendees were divided into teams that would compete to be the firstn to successfully name the celebrity. For each celebrity, Spurling prepared three unique artistically distorted images of the celebrity, starting with a nearly-impossible-to-recognize image and getting progressively more recognizable. In 2009, Spurling collaborated again with Jonathan Field to create Celebrity Guess Who, an online version of the game that could be played by single players competing against the clock for a high score.

On New Year’s Eve of 2006, a propos of nothing, Spurling released an in-depth “countdown” style look at The Best Metal Album Titles of 2006. As a birthday present for her girlfriend in early 2008, Spurling created Barfield Loses His Lunch, a collection of 64 comic strips that form an increasing increasingly bizarre and twisted parody of Garfield, created by remixing and reworking art and dialogue from original Garfield comic strips. From 1999 to 2011 also Spurling faithfully kept readers informed about news and entertainment on her personal website TheReverend.com. These articles have been archived for future generations to pour through at TheReverend.com archives.

In late 2018, Spurling launched The New Moralityas “an attempt to codify in plain, straightforward language how to be a decent human being in the world today”, and a way to unite “millions of Christians, Muslims, Jews, agnostics, atheists, and others with a shared set of moral principles to live their lives as good and caring people.” During the Covid-19 pandemic of the early 2020s, Spurling began work on her first non-LEGO-illustrated book, a history of the origins of Christianity.

External Links

Elbe Spurling

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