Art moments from playtime

Arts & Activities, May, 2005 by George Szekeley

Inside the cellophane-screened box is a complete gym, with matching colored barbells and kneepads. The yellow button on the rowing machine's panel starts the doll's exercise. There is even a water container to keep the doll in proper hydration. If the rowing doll stops entertaining you, turn to the back of the box to see all the possible ways to set up the dozens of exercise accessories on the doll's exercise-room wall. My daughter, Ana, yearned for this toy and even offered a stake in her future allowance to a willing investor.

Toy boxes do not have expiration dates, but this purchase is still in its unopened container-years later. Visitors to Ana's room can press the button on the rowing machine to see it work, but what can you do with a toy for which playing is not required? Like other clearly enunciating action models, it is more like watching TV with limited interaction. Today's toys have all the moves, all the accessories, and all the required instructions. The excitement is in the selection, and the challenge is in convincing parents to buy it.

As a child in Europe, I owned four horses. They were beautifully painted, made of plaster and required lots of care. You can imagine my joy in America, where I could go to the corner luncheonette to buy a whole stable of 50 plastic show horses in a plastic packet. Scouting the revolving rack was my joy. Inside the clear bags, clipped with a lovely hand-painted picture, rested an entire army platoon, farm animals, or every prehistoric dinosaur that ever existed. All that was needed was a player's imagination, scenery, voices and direction.

The hardest part was taking home a cast in the bag without opening it, since a million different setup ideas were already spinning in my head. On a nice day, I never did get the cast into the house. Figures were let loose in the yard, moving into action stories supported by twigs and stones. Leaves became food, shelter, transport and hiding places. After each play, a roundup placed everyone back in the bag, to be later dispersed in other locations with different missions.

In class, I often talk about how I played as a child, to help certify playtime as important art moments. We begin each art lesson with setting up and displaying toys. This allows children to be children, re-empowered by creative mind-sets in which young designers flourish. It is difficult today to find bags of just figures, or vehicles, without them being packaged in elaborate kits. By separating the simple toy from its ready-made setting, accessories and instructions, my students can work with basic "art supplies."

FAVORITE TOYS FOR CLASS SETUPS Surprising residents live inside my collection of lunch boxes. Children enjoy opening the lunch boxes to free different groups of play objects. Among the favorite groups to clothe, house and take on a ride are bendable figures with extended limbs that can be "pretzeled" into the most unlikely poses. Other frequently requested collections include a group of windup figures, wild animal pencil toppers, dinosaurs, the Fisher Price farm animal collection, a set of the 1950s Marx circus figures, and an assortment of pocket-size construction vehicles. Each assortment is used to formulate complex scenes and performances, environmental setups and three-dimensional fantasies.

FAVORITE SETUP SITES Great play constructions are often located in a closet or under a table or bed. Enclosed or covered spaces have a special appeal to young designers' privacy as these spaces can simulate a room within a room. The space under art-class tables is prime real estate. In our class we keep a trunk full of extra roofs (blankets and sheets) available for additional closure. Umbrellas in an antique stand are on frequent call for tent-like covers to set up under. Unusual boxes, old instrument cases, multilevel toolboxes and free-standing garment bags are used for toy setups. Low branches, pine-needle covered floors, and cave-like bushes are favored for tree-level and ground-floor settings.

FAVORITE BASES Adult and childhood construction sites are on the ground. Kids create their finest toy settings on the floor. Not just any floor will do. Inspiring bases on which to work are sought and often seem to be in the way of adult activities. Children, seeking the best view or an interesting level and surface, set up on stairs, on windowsills, or on the brick ledge in front of a fireplace. Crates and encyclopedias, outdoor carpet remnants, unusual sink liners, foam insulation sheets, old blankets and skate boards are available in our art room as places on which to set up. Children's designs are inspired by the patterns, textures, shape, size, location and portability of a floor canvas.

Children provide vivid descriptions of memorable setups, such as the time they made a Smurf's wedding reception on a cake (hat box), of built a shoe-rack hospital for wounded G.I. Joes. We photographed a child's ranch on an Astroturf doormat, a bear's party set around the rim of a straw hat, and a stage-set created on a moving turntable for the raisin-figures band.