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Toy theatre friends The best thing about running in a shop is meeting all your customers. Some who become friends, podcast guests, artistic collaborators. At the end of last year I was trying to source a toy theatre. The ballet in a box ‘Swan Lake’ by Jean Mahoney and Viola Ann Seddon, published by Walker…
Theatre designer Christopher Oram is next in the queue joining Simon and author & illustrator Brian Selznick in part 2 of episode 5 From childhood influences to a stellar career designing for the theatre, Christopher discusses how he has come full circle. Creating imaginary worlds as a kid dreaming of Star Wars to creating the…
Hugo Cabret: ‘Maybe that’s why a broken machine always makes me a little sad, because it isn’t able to do what it was meant to do… Maybe it’s the same with people. If you lose your purpose… it’s like you’re broken.’ I’m a technician with a special interest in the very early days of…
Writer and illustrator Brian Selznick talks to Simon about the art of piecing together a page turner and how children’s books can be a guide and friend in navigating life as a child. Brian’s black and white illustrations set the scene for the reader to dream in colour. His 2007 book ‘The Invention of Hugo…
Here is a beguiling story I once read about Franz Kafka who in 1923, a year before his death, was walking through a park in Berlin when he across a small girl in a state of distress. The child was inconsolable as she had lost her favourite doll. Not missing a beat, Kafka immediately informed…
“To me it’s normal now, being out and about taking pictures, it looks really crazy but to me it’s perfectly normal. I guess I do express myself” This is not a quote from luminary female photographer Cindy Sherman with a current retrospective at the National Portrait Gallery on until the 15th September, but the doll…
The Doll: The original influencer, a companion, confidante and co-conspirator, what is the role now for the doll in this age when playthings are replaced by avatars on screens? As the popularity of the doll wanes, is she lost or are we? Holding Up The Queue with Simon in this the 4th episode of the podcast…
FOLK TOYS Much has been written about folk art, popular art, naive art …. but where is the history of British folk toys? Whenever we think of folk toys we recognise those from Germany, Czechoslovakia, Mexico, Japan, Russia and India – books have been published on the folk toys from these countries. The toys are…
Annie Montgomerie at Benjamin Pollock’s Toyshop In Christmas 2018, Benjamin Pollock’s Toyshop played host to a fantastical cast of characters created by Annie Montgomerie. Anthropomorphism & Toys Her anthropomorphic storybook beings are part toy, part sculpture and each individual piece is unique, being made from 100% wool felt, up-cycled fabrics and vintage charms and jewellery….
In our podcast ‘From the Forest to the Fantastical’ Simon uses allegories of adventures of Dutch Dolls and folk art toys. Through them, he tells the story of the toy industry and the aesthetic of ‘folk art’ and in Britain the ‘popular art’ of toy theatre, Punch and Judy and fairground art that today filters…
Artists’ Toys and the Toy as Art. The Artists and the need to play Artists often tap into their inner child to make toys. Picasso made a miniature theatre fashioned out of an empty Gauloises cigarette packet for his children Maya and Paulo, with tiny paper cut-out figures of commedia del’arte characters for them to…
Holding Up the Queue with Simon this episode is Clive Hicks-Jenkins, an artist who has retained that essential spark of playfulness from childhood. Leaving his parents in Wales aged 12 to travel to the bright lights of London, Clive embarked on his metaphorical journey “from the forest to the fantastical”. Simon and Clive meander and…
Why did we decide to launch the Harlequinade Club and what is it? It’s a club for Pollocks aficionados and you will find out about here and on our social media and in our shop but not on a mailing list, it is here when you want to join in. But it doesn’t really exist,…
Simon and artist Charlotte Cory embark on a spirited discussion on anthropomorphism – from Victorian taxidermy tableaus to the transformative power of play and illustration. These absurd worlds, populated by anthropomorphic inhabitants can help to encourage confidence in children and a sense of liberated perception of others through “pure fantasy”. Charlotte Cory certainly knows how…
I first met Denise Hoyle in 2003 when I bought some of her decorative tinselled cards. I wanted to sell them in the shop so I sought her out, discovering that she was a near neighbour. She invited me to her house where she showed me an amazing quantity of ceramics and watercolours that she…
Close your eyes and picture a box that contains a world of magical wonders. A fantastical machine imbued with enchantments powered to life by the imagination and dreams of the seeker, searching for answers to lost and hidden questions, held crystallised like a beating heart within its four walls. This is no ordinary box, but…
