By transforming toys into works of art, innovative artisans from around the world are showing that there is more than one way to tell a toy story.

And their creations are offering real-world benefits to consumers and collectors alike. While playing with toys has been shown to aid brain development in children, studies also show that such amusements boost the health of adults too, from relieving stress to improving cognitive skills. “Playtime doesn't end when we grow up,” says Dr. Stuart Brown, head of the National Institute of Play, on his nonprofit's website. “Adults need recess too.”

Playfulness is also at the heart of cultural events, such as festivals, markets and museum shows. In a 2017 survey by Culture Track, a national online research firm, 81 percent of respondents said the top motivator for engaging in these activities was simply the desire to have fun.

Against this backdrop, Santa Fe welcomes a colorful march of toys to the International Folk Art Market, where artisans offer a variety of nondigital creations sure to stir the imagination. They elevate the art of toy making by creating intricate settings, introducing new hues of hand-applied paints, sculpting detailed wooden and papier-mâché figures, using fabrics in new ways and, in some cases, adding mechanisms to toys for movement.

teachable toys

To Mario Calderón of Venezuela and his artisan colleagues, toy making is a way to honor the history, traditions, music, dance and natural environment of his country. His carvedwood creations feature “a new color palette that reflects the rich and diverse flora, fauna and earth tones of our tropical environment,” he says in an issue of IFAM Stories. His chessboards feature pieces fashioned into historical figures. Other toys portray street vendors and people working in trades. A bright blue Ferris wheel rotates, and with a twist of the artist's hands, wooden clowns become circus performers skillfully balancing on ropes. “Other essential elements of our latest designs,” he says, “are the imaginative mechanisms that create movement in the pieces.”

Calderón is on a mission to regenerate traditional Venezuelan toy making, crafting it in “a new image full of purpose. Our culture and our traditions are told through these toys.” He aims to increase knowledge of their history, illustrate their cultural impact and show their evolution for contemporary times. “These are pieces

for everyday use, teaching tools in the classroom” and in workshops he conducts for artists throughout the country. He adds, “Toys have started to become items for collection that fascinate adults,” showing there is no age limit for experiencing adventures in toy land.

creative recycling

From discarded boxes destined for the trash, Josué Eleazar Castro Razo and his wife, Elisa Ayala, construct cardboard toys held together with water and wheat flour paste. From those simple ingredients, they create colorful and detailed papier-mâché figures and scenes. In their collection, a smiling Mexican cowboy rides a blue horse that trots, and a complicated cityscape features skeletons rowing on a blue lagoon. Castro Razo's background as a mechanical engineer helps him transform the couple's creations from flat and static to movable and multidimensional.

Papier-mâché (cartonería) has become one of the most popular folk art materials in Mexico because of increased demand for pinatas and dolls, says Castro Razo, who became a toy maker six years ago. His wife left her business career to join him in their enterprise. In addition to minding the business, she makes mobiles, dolls, pinatas and catrinas (fancily dressed female skeletons), creations “that show the harmony of Mexico,” Castro says on the Cactus Fine Art website.

Castro Razo's inspiration for making art derives from his grandfather Manuel Jimenez Ramirez, a sculptor and painter credited with initiating a Oaxacan version of alebrijes, fantastical animal creatures carved out of wood and painted in neon colors. Castro Razo says that through his own art, he wants to put his grandfather's legacy “out there for the whole world to know.”

the nature of dolls

For centuries the people of Kyrgyzstan wandered as nomads. They bred sheep for wool and produced felt to create objects of warmth and whimsy. “Felt was used by our ancestors everywhere — for rugs, wall panels, clothes, containers, booties, saddles and toys,” says Erkebu Djumagulova in the IFAM artist registry. Today she and her artist colleagues, predominantly women, use felt to craft traditionally dressed dolls with plump, pink cheeks and smiling faces, belying the harsh conditions of life in Kyrgyzstan.

“Felt is becoming more and more popular in Kyrgyzstan due to the impact of NGO [nongovernmental organization] activity, craft fairs, television programs, festivals, schools and the impact of designers,” Djumagulova says. “For me it brings a mass of positive energy, which I use in making my dolls.”

Born in the Soviet Union in 1956 to a family of artisans, she recalls “a time when our traditions and customs were not accepted by society because of Soviet policies.” In danger of being forgotten, felting as an art was saved by rural women determined to preserve crafts from their country's past. As a child she recalls helping her grandmother and mother process wool and decorate rugs, blankets and clothes. In college she studied textile design.

In workshops that have trained more than 1,000 women artists, Djumagulova shares her conviction that felt is more than a fabric for crafting objects. Without felting, she says, “we will lose our links with nature and a harmonious co-existing of nature and man.”

From varied backgrounds, IFAM's toy makers share a common commitment to support their art by preserving traditional techniques as well as welcoming innovations, and to gain needed income for themselves and their communities. For consumers of all ages, toy making will continue to thrive as an art form that is also just plain fun.

Patti LaSalle-Hopkins is a writer and editor in Santa Fe.