Hello, what is this thing? At the Autry Museum, the vintage toys of 'Play!' are serious fun

Hello, what is this thing? At the Autry Museum, the vintage toys of ‘Play!’ are serious fun

By Jessica GeltStaff Writer

June 20, 2017 9:50 AM PT

Do you remember dragging a doll around as a child? Or the first time you stacked blocks and wrecked your own tower? Do you remember the feel of your favorite blanket? The smell of your Barbie’s hair? Lying on your bedroom floor listening to plastic records on a Fisher-Price player?

The experience of playing is tied to our earliest memories, and toys become sources of nostalgia as we grow. This provided the impetus for the new exhibit at the Autry Museum of the American West called “Play!” Featuring more than 200 toys and games spanning centuries and cultures, the exhibit seeks to unlock the child in all of us.

“We wanted to create a playful, multigenerational experience of historic toys against whimsically designed environments to reveal the many ways children play, past and present,” curator Carolyn Brucken said.

One of Brucken’s favorite objects, picked from a colorful array of dolls, board and video games, balls, action figures and more, is a toy cooking jar made by the Mogollon tribe of Arizona in 1500 BC. When she took it out of its box, its diminutive size made it immediately clear that it was created for little hands. It was molded quickly, but with affection, Brucken said.

“We viewed play as a universal experience by children across the West, and time,” she said. “But the toys themselves are a microcosm of society.”

To represent this — and to drive home the fact that when it comes to toys, the more things change, the more they stay the same — viewers will find types of toys grouped together: Native American balls, Inuit balls and 20th century softballs, for example.

“I think play is something you don’t grow out of,” Brucken said. “In a good way.”