Maybe more so, for I was feeling all the joys of creativity, without any of the hard work involved, and the only pain was in my wallet. By this simple act of recognizing that this object I had found was Art, in 1958, when to all the rest of the world, it was not, and standing behind my conviction by paying what was, then, a painful price, I experienced all the emotional satisfaction that I would have if I had actually created this powerful object, myself. But the money was not the issue, it was, instead, the inner conflict, that I finally resolved by convincing myself that this object was a sculpture, first, and Mickey, only, secondarily.”Ī nd thus began a lifetime of collecting. I bought it! Considering that my Hotel room rent was the equivalent of $30 a month, his price of $10 dollars was not one to be taken lightly. I guess you're all wondering what happened. Could I give in to the spell that this fierce, yet friendly, object was casting over me, and embrace it, in spite of the fact that it was Mickey? It seemed like hours passed, as I stood mousemerized. Although, I had never seen a Mickey Mouse as powerful as this, he was still the symbol of everything I had rejected and outgrown. What Mickey images I had seen, were 1940s Mickey at his wishy-washy worst, with pink face, eyeballs and chubby cheeks. Donald Duck was popular in my day, and Mickey, by then, had almost gone away. Although, I was a Disney fanatic as a child, the real Mickey Mouse was almost unknown to me. I found this to be a fascinating sculpture! But, alas, it was also Mickey Mouse. And then there was this subtle shift, as he gently leans to one side, not enough to destroy the symmetry, but just enough to keep him off balance, always in motion, and alive. It was the fierce power of the image, the pure and unexpected geometry, the straight lines and sharp angles, the pointed snout, sharp elbows, and how they contrasted with and played off of the round elements of his anatomy. But it wasn't the Mickeyness of this object that attracted me. Although, younger than the stuff around it, this image was older than, and unlike any Mickey Mouse that I had ever seen. T his cast iron bank! It caught my eye from afar, shining like a beacon, amid a sea of ancient things. “ O ne fateful day, at the Paris Flea market, which at that time, was the only "Flea Market" in the world, I found myself standing and staring at a puzzling object, an object that was destined to profoundly alter the course of my entire life. As I have already recounted the experience, elsewhere, in a speech I gave, ten years ago, and I couldn’t say it any better now, so, please, forgive me if I cut and paste: ![]() Thus, my life altering moment of revelation, the instant that I realized that Toys could be Art, and visa-versa, took place simultaneously, but independently of the influence of Pop Art. W hile Pop Art was happening in the USA, I was unaware of it, in 1958, the year that I lived in Paris. ![]() One small compensation for old age is the fact that I was there form the beginning to experience and savor the excitement and adventure of discovering “The Real Thing.” Others are playful variations on the icons and imagery that I have been collecting all my life. Some Art Toys are highly original, with forms dictated, to some degree, by the approachable affordability of the vinyl media, which tends to make them look, somewhat, alike. If I had been born fifty years later, I’d probably be creating them, today. ![]() And, thus, these individuals qualified as “artists,” while the craftsman who actually created the originals, did not.ĭ on’t get me wrong, I think Art Toys are great. The pretentiousness of the elite Art community deemed that those, who played the Art Gallery Game successfully, had merely to discover these commercial products, and proclaim them to be “art” by copying or enlarging them. Did this make the humble craftsmen who designed these products “artists”? Maybe not. It proclaimed that Art might pop up anywhere, and even some commercial products made under the umbrella of industry might be considered “Works of Art”. P op Art redefined what “Art” was all about. It is simply called “Art Toys”, a name that has a ring to it that sounds somewhat similar to a movement that was prominent in my day, one that had a far greater influence on the World of Art, and certainly on me, “Pop Art”. It seems there is a new category of toy and art, alike, that combines the two in spirit and in name. T hinking about a title for this website, one that came to mind was “TOYS AS ART” or maybe “ART AS TOYS”? I couldn’t decide! They are both saying sort of the same thing, and both titles are timely in both the Art and Toy worlds of today.
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