My Memory:
Now 52 years old, living in Croatia and Sweden, I always liked to paint and have had it as a hobby for a long time. There have been evening classes after work and creative painting days with friends. Painting always makes me happy, to create myself but also I find it inspiring to look at other peoples art.
She was a lovely little blond with blue skirt, white blows and shoes. She gave me happiness and joy every day of my childhood. I played with her, washed her, combed her hair simply I loved her. On that day when I came back from school and before starting on my homework, I wanted to play, my doll was not there. ‘Mama, mama….where is my doll?’ I cried in shock and panic. ‘Today my sister came with her little girl and I let her play with your doll. But, when they left, she would not give it back, I let her borrow the doll’ mama said. I have no words to describe my sorrow, I cried for days. In time I went to my aunt with idea of getting my doll back. A few steps into the courtyard and I came upon my doll. She was not her beautiful self any more, one of her legs was missing, her hair was cut, and she was dirty. I cried, I felt desperate, they were mute and stunned by my reaction. They could never understand what the doll meant to me and what they have all done.
It took years for me to come to terms and to forgive my mama. After that my only wish was to get the biggest doll ever. This I have achieved.
FRANKA RABAR - CROATIA
My memory:
My early childhood, considering that I was born in 1943 was spent in a terrible war, and post war recession at the time when early childhood toys did not exist. However, because of this my early childhood has not been any less happy because then we spent more time socializing with our peers, neighbours, we played the whole days from morning to night especially over the holiday season; we played until parents called us in. During the summer we all went swimming together with our parents. At that time I particularly liked to play with rag dolls that I made myself and dressed them in their little dresses that I made myself. My brother got a rag ball that I made for him instead of a football. He played with it with his friends.
NINA DRAGAN BELIć - CROATIA
My dear grandfather gave him to me when I was a month old; that is why I don’t remember a single day without my Teddy called Menda. How did he get his name? It was probably, because I could not say Medo. I remember that before bed time I would fill my bed with toys. My bed was a boat, and Mendo was its Capitan. He was there to protect me from witches and sharks. Sometimes my bed changed into a castle, a fortress, or fields full of flowers, where chess pieces represented actors, coloured pencils, my doll Ana and Mendo played the main role. He was persistent and always victorious.
A book of friendship
What is a book of friendship? For me it is a 'gift of memories'. My mother gave it to me for my tenth birthday. There inside are all of my friends from my elementary school; my two brothers; our neighbourhood children from a house where we lived for 14 years; even my teachers. Ten years of pure joy and happiness; the whole of my childhood is in this little book. How could I ever throw it away, I have kept it for 48 years already and I hope that my grandchildren may giggle when they see this old Slave custom of keeping a 'book of friendship'. I have kept it also because of my friend Mirjana's warm wishes for my future. Sadly, she died few years later.
Pinocchio
I still believe in Pinocchio! It all started during my early childhood, then I felt deep love and desire for that small creative toy. My wish came through and I gained a sincere friend that stayed with me, in my heart to this day. As I grew older I became more and more fascinated by this dear being. When I got older I became a puppeteer and gave my all to share my experience and skill with other people especially with youngsters so that the memory of Pinocchio that is beautiful remains alive. Because of this I want to thank you Pinocchio for you have made of me, a little child a man who still loves you ever more.
LIVERPOOL, UK - DIGITAL COLLECTION
My memory:
I do not have a most treasured toy, but I have this knitted toy of Denise the menace, given to me by a lady I know. My attachment to inanimate objects began a long time ago. I work with rejected toys and cloth which have their own memory and communicate a narrative that is both personal and universal. My artwork is a visual memory of stories told to me as a child.
My memory:
I did not like dolls very much, but was given an expensive rubber baby doll, probably from America and she was called Elizabeth. I had a 'friend' who always told me her things were much better than mine, so I decided to show her how much better Elizabeth was than her doll and proceeded to draw heavily all over Elizabeth’s hands, feet and face with a biro, telling this girl that Elizabeth was very easy to clean and was magic. Needless to say, she continued to bear the scars for ever and was, I suppose, an original tattooed doll. My mum was not very pleased and no amount of cleaning stuff made any difference. I don’t know what happened to her, but she was no longer pretty and I felt guilty when I played with her. I hope I have been better at looking after my children. At least they are not covered in blue scribble at least; the bits on show are not!
ISTRA TONER - U.K. & CROATIA
My memory:Name: Lila. I am about 9 years old. I have been ill with respiratory problems for a long time and was forced to spend much time in bed with fever. My father was a sailor, he was often away. On his return he would always bring me something special from his trips including a fan from Far East; a rocking horse that I called Lila. I played with it under the bed clothes. I would create and invent stories and images of riding far away in a magical and exotic far away land that my father told me about. My father gave my mother the record ‘South Pacific’ that was the hit in the world. I remember hearing lovely unfamiliar tunes while I shivered with fever in the dark and my parents were dancing to it in the room next door. I was not unhappy, just comforted by my toys.
JAN BROWN - U.K.
My memory:
This is my Tressy doll. She is 47 years old. I remember playing with her for hours sitting on my bedroom floor. I had a large cardboard tub with all her clothes and shoes in. I would dress her up in various outfits, but the best was a turquoise evening dress with shoe string straps and layers of white lace at the bottom. Long white gloves and white shoes finished it off.
She came with a flesh coloured key which was placed in the mechanism on her back – turning the key retracted the core of long hair. By pressing the button on her tummy, the core of hair could be pulled out so she had long hair. I would brush it, style it, tie it up and curl it. She was a wonderful playmate. The slogan was….Tressy – her hair grows!
JENNIE CUNNINGHAM - U.K.
Toy - A half sized child’s violin
This violin is a ‘toy’ that belonged to my brother and when I took up violin lessons at school aged seven it was handed to me.
I come from a musical family with my maternal grandfather playing the violin and he even made his own instrument and my mother is also a self-taught pianist. I remember learning to play with this violin and continued to have lessons until about the age of fourteen. During my secondary school education I hated the violin as my lessons always disrupted my art lessons as they fell at the same point in my week’s timetable. I ended up discontinuing violin lessons as a result as I wanted to commit fully to art. However, I still continued to play and learn piano. It seems to have been an ongoing problem in my life to combine my music and arts practice! However, I studied animation and sound design at postgraduate level and now successfully combine image and sound together in experimental ways using film, theatre and performance within my visual practice.
My memory:
It was hard to try and chose one toy, but since plastic seemed to play a huge role in my childhood toys, I decided to focus on the first one I recall receiving. Judging by the type of toy it was, I couldn't have been far from being one year old, yet I still remember the packaging, it's size (it seemed massive), and the impact it had on me when I received it with its rainbow colours and the red ball on top, eye candy.
I remember chewing the light orange one and having both sides of the hollow plastic connect in my mouth but not being able to do it with the yellow one as it was too hard to bend, having the loops spread on the floor and struggling to understand which size went on first on the pole. Challenging! With time, I learned to organize the loops by colour and used them mainly as bracelets. I was mesmerised by light coming through certain loops such as again the orange one and started using them in other ways...they became accessories for dolls, tools for play and were a favourite in the bath tub. I used them for experiments. Once, probably age 4, I was curious of what would happen if I put my hand on the stove top and used one to test. I touched the ring with the side of (the orange) loop and was shocked to discover that the ring had melted the plastic and left me with a grimacing gap (the melted plastic looked like sharp teeth). This was shocking, and kept me away from hot stoves. I eventually grew out of playing with this toy but I find it interesting, sitting here glancing around the room, that many of my paintings today are brightly coloured and have painted loops.
My memory:
My grandfather was an adventurer, a large , gentle man with a free spirit, who as a young man travelled extensively, mostly through Canada. As a child I remember his stories of how he had come across magnificent animals living in the wilds of the Rocky Mountains and the great forests throughout the world. My strongest memory is of my grandfather and I reading the book ‘White Fang’ together many times. It is the story of a wolf-dog, a ferocious creature who through his great battle to survive learned to adapt. My book and toy wolf were gifts from my grandfather, sadly the original book disappeared when moving home. Fortunately in 1991 an unabridged version was republished and I was able to replace it.
The continuing concept that underpins my work today is that of evolutionary processes, principally the primal instinct for survival achieved via diversity, mutation and the adaptive development of offence and defence mechanisms.
