Introduction: Why Play?

This blog is a place I will come to share my thoughts about the importance of playing and using one's imagination no matter how old one becomes. For whatever reason, I have never lost interest in toys, and now that I am almost 30, I am publicly giving myself permission to keep enjoying dolls and stuffed animals. Furthermore, as I do climb in age and start seeing the kids of today from an objective viewpoint, I am constantly concerned that children are not using their imaginations and playing as much as my peers and I used to. I do NOT have children myself (and that is a subject for another time), so maybe this observation is not as accurate as I think it is. Yet it seems like girls are influenced from earlier and earlier ages to grow up and concentrate on more adult things like clothes, shoes, hair, nails, boys...that window of time when kids just let their Barbies deal with those kinds of things seems to be narrowing as the generations pass.

As an only child (who grew up in the early 80s), playing was sacred to me. It was how I spent all my time, and how I filled the room with colorful stories and characters to keep me company. I had all the usual toys of that day: Barbies, My Little Ponies, Rainbow Brite's, She-Ra's, Jem dolls, a Precious Places doll house, stuffed animals, and a corner of the basement set up to play "house" in, complete with toy kitchen and a bureau of "dress-up" clothes. I didn't have excessive amounts of toys, as my parents went to great lengths to make sure I wasn't spoiled. But I had plenty, and I enjoyed them all. But then, life happened, as it is prone to do, and I had less and less time to think about such things. School work took up most of my time, because it was important to me to be an excellent student. And I can't imagine how it would have been if I had had all the extra-curricular activities that most kids seem to have today pulling me in even more different directions. I was never in to sports or clubs. I have always been an artist, though, and most of my free time went to working on independent projects. I graduated high school with honors, went to college and majored in metalsmithing/jewelry design, found a job as a designer in a costume jewelry company, and then married the love of my life, who I had dated all through college. Now we have a house, and life has calmed down. Growing up happened, as far as I'm concerned. And guess what? I finally had the time to realize that some of my dolls and I have unfinished business together. 

 Thanks for reading, whoever you are, and stay tuned for more insight, doll pics, stories, and anything else that I think is worth documenting as I continue this "playtime" experiment and hopefully inspire others to do the same. 

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