Toymaker's Statement

I love meditation. Doing it has given me new space. It has given me new energy.

With some of that energy I make toys to explore meditation. They are combine the fun and the serious. They try and bring some new energy to the adventure.   

Meditation can feel severe, and it’s probably not useful for your practice to become a new source of judgement or another adversary. Making friends with meditation is better.

Sometime as I’m making these toys, they can start to feel precious, they can drift into the realm of art. They're beautiful to me, but I try to fix them whenever they get close to being aware of their own artness. I invite them to rejoin the land of toys and usually they come willingly.

Meditation and toymaking has also brought me friendships. I continue to create toys to make new friends and good deeper with existing ones. Self-expression is nice, but for me, friendship is where it's at.  
    
Once I scribbled a note to myself: make friends with art. I wrote it to mean ‘befriend art and art making, don’t struggle so much with the process.’ But just as I finished writing another meaning popped up - like the head of a gopher - and make friends with art meant ‘make friendships with art.’ If you replace 'art' with toys or with meditation, and that’s what I’m working on. 

Make friends with art.

Make friends with meditation. 

Make friends with toys.  

The shop is here to make buying these toys easy, for yourself or to give as a gift. Things are meant to be inexpensive. If you really want something and can’t afford it, email me and we’ll find a solution. If you want to buy a bunch of these to give away at an event or a group, you can contact me and I’ll get them to you at cost.

And send me an email with your reactions. I’m excited to hear from you. 

Eric      
antonow@gmail.com