Dr. Toy and WIT
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Fulfilled a longtime aspiration this evening to meet Dr. Stevanne Auerbach, aka Dr. Toy . Ever since hearing that she had a toy museum in San Francisco, I have wanted to pick her brain and also ask her why she closed her museum after only three years. That I never saw nor heard of her museum while it was in existence from 1986-1989 was no mystery - I was a new bewildered mother and didn't get out much for the first few years. The Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989 was the reason Dr. Toy's museum was closed.
Dr. Toy was a speaker at the Women in Toys meeting this evening. Her topic was Smart Play, Smart Toys. I felt like a student trying to suck up to a respected teacher because every time she asked a question like who has heard of ___? Or how many of you have ever attended a Toy Fair? My hand kept shooting up like a rabid third-grader. When she opened her Power Point presentation with the statement, "A toy is a child's first experience of art", I sat up at attention. It was all I could do to not stand up and testify and try and start a dialogue.
For the most part what I heard was a reinforcement of the mission and vision of LATDA. But there were times I wanted her to go farther. That toys can teach motor and cognitive skills is undeniable. But I think that we learn desire and love from our first toys too. Both 'bad' love (covetousness and unbridled desire) and 'good' love (protective and nostalgic). We also learn how to be delighted and astonished through our experience with toys. Perhaps the latter states of emotion are fleeting and temporal, but love and desire are substantial and complex.
The other topic I longed to broach was the idea that toys are not just for children. That what we consider as positive developmental tools for children are also reflected in toys that are being created by adults, for adults. And I'm not talking about marital aids...
There is a rapidly growing movement of artists creating limited editions of vinyl toys aimed solely at collectors who are old enough to have disposable income. These collectors fall somewhere in between art collector/connoisseurs and toy-mint-in-box collectors. My personal opinion is that what makes these collectors different is that they maintain the same innocent sensibility as a kid who simply WANTS a particular toy. This is fodder for a future LATDA exhibition...
Dr. Toy was a speaker at the Women in Toys meeting this evening. Her topic was Smart Play, Smart Toys. I felt like a student trying to suck up to a respected teacher because every time she asked a question like who has heard of ___? Or how many of you have ever attended a Toy Fair? My hand kept shooting up like a rabid third-grader. When she opened her Power Point presentation with the statement, "A toy is a child's first experience of art", I sat up at attention. It was all I could do to not stand up and testify and try and start a dialogue.
For the most part what I heard was a reinforcement of the mission and vision of LATDA. But there were times I wanted her to go farther. That toys can teach motor and cognitive skills is undeniable. But I think that we learn desire and love from our first toys too. Both 'bad' love (covetousness and unbridled desire) and 'good' love (protective and nostalgic). We also learn how to be delighted and astonished through our experience with toys. Perhaps the latter states of emotion are fleeting and temporal, but love and desire are substantial and complex.
The other topic I longed to broach was the idea that toys are not just for children. That what we consider as positive developmental tools for children are also reflected in toys that are being created by adults, for adults. And I'm not talking about marital aids...
There is a rapidly growing movement of artists creating limited editions of vinyl toys aimed solely at collectors who are old enough to have disposable income. These collectors fall somewhere in between art collector/connoisseurs and toy-mint-in-box collectors. My personal opinion is that what makes these collectors different is that they maintain the same innocent sensibility as a kid who simply WANTS a particular toy. This is fodder for a future LATDA exhibition...