Becky Bliss
About Becky Bliss
Reflections
Estella challenged us through a series of fast exercises to look differently at common objects we had brought to the room. As we pushed through a range of materials, I realised that the choice of those materials had been quite important. Samples from exercises above I...
Standing Room Only, RNZ interview
Lynn Freeman interviews Peter Deckers, Caroline Thomas, Vivien Atkinson and Becky Bliss. Radio New Zealand Standing Room Only, 1:46 pm on 8 December 2019 LISTEN: PLAY
Packaging
If you were in any doubt who specific toys were targeted to, take a look at the packaging. Let's look at statistics of engineers relatively recently in the US (since there’s a few meccano boxes specifically for engineering). Women account for 47% of the...
Plastic fantastic
The first plastic was developed in 1869. It was called celluloid and one of its first uses was to produce a white billiard ball (to replace ivory). Bakelite shortly followed. Oil was cheap, and the toy industry was gradually taken over. It was also very flammable. It...
A selective brief history of children’s toys #2
Pre-war. Toys were made of wood, fabric, die-cast metals. Toys generally reflected the perceptions of society. Most came with gender values, designed to socialise children to behave with the gender expectations of their society (childhood by design). Some of the most...
A selective brief history of children’s toys #1
Most anthropologists seem to agree that children’s toys have always had an educational element to them. The education is usually gender specific (no surprise here) – weapons and tools for the boys and dolls and cooking implements for the girls, whatever era we’re...
Much ADO about…
I am paired with the ADO collection and contemporary jeweller Lucy Sarneel. The ADO collection is an historical collection of wooden toys designed by Ko Verzuu from mid-1920 to early 1960s. The toys have clean lines and are brightly coloured, inspired by the De Stijl...
introducing handshake 5
The newly-formed HANDSHAKE 5 group came together for JEWELcamp at Te Auaha (Wellington) with the briefing of the two unique exhibition projects that occurs later this year. Roseanne Bartley workshopped in her masterclass creative ways of approaching the...