December 24, 2003

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Palo Alto Online

Toy story

by Sue Dremann

Doll maker Beth Karpas' workshop is a magical place. It's a room where children turn into apples, and angels turn into ornaments.

Dozens of colorful fairy tale figures line bookshelves, peeping out from amid her library of science fiction and fantasy books. The Tortoise and the Hare; Clara and the Sugar Plum Fairy; The Little Match Girl; and Little Red Riding Hood, Grandma and the Wolf spring to life out of cotton, flannel, panne velvet and imitation fur.

In her sewing room, a lifetime of stories take shape in a multitude of colors -- red capes, furry green and blue ears, calico dresses carefully selected from remnant bins in garment fabric shops.

Karpas is one of a number of cottage-industry toy makers who have eschewed corporate jobs in Silicon Valley's tech industry to inspire children and adults with purposeful and wildly imaginative games and toys.

"Ideas are what people get paid thousands of dollars for as adults," said Anna Rainville, a fourth-grade teacher at the imaginative play-oriented Waldorf School of the Peninsula.

Stanford University Professor Sam Savage was inspired to create the Shmuzzle, an ingenious interlocking puzzle, out of boredom and frustration with his job as a professor of management science at the University of Chicago in 1974.

"I figured out that only 10 percent of my students understood the subject matter, and only 10 percent of those would apply it, and I wasn't happy," he said.

He kept going back to an idea that bent his mind the year before after seeing an exhibit of the mathematical prints by artist M.C. Escher. Escher's best-known art is characterized by the principle of tessellation, when repeating shapes endlessly fit together without spaces between them. Think mosaics and tiles. The Shmuzzle was an outgrowth of creating a three-dimensional Escher-like design.

Unlike conventional jigsaw puzzles with different shaped pieces put together in only one way, the 168-piece Shmuzzle has only one shape, but can be put together thousands of ways to produce designs, Savage said.

The puzzle piece comes in the shape of a salamander. Pieces can be linked together by heads (head shmuzzling), legs (leg shmuzzling) or tails -- "I think tail shmuzzling is finally legal in California," Savage joked.

Shmuzzles took off, and Savage sold nearly a half-million sets by 1984. Shmuzzle enthusiasts even submitted their puzzle shape creations over the years; among them, a shmenguin, shmiral, shnowflake, and his favorite -- John Shmavolta.

The tall, silver-haired, energetic professor brims with excitement as he spills forth a steady stream of his well-thought out ideas -- some of which are applied today in science, computers and economics. Creating Shmuzzles put a lot of fun in his life, he said.

Although he hadn't foreseen its commercial potential, the puzzle that started out as an intriguing mathematical exercise turned into a way for Savage to turn on the world in ways his university teaching couldn't. In the process, he created a puzzle that could make instant inventors out of each person who picked up its pieces.

"If you have an idea, you should just pursue it. Plans? Baloney. Planning tends to keep you from being creative. A good idea is going to take on a life of its own, and a bad idea you will not be able to breathe life into," he said.

John O'Neill has an idea he hopes will help make the world a better place. To encourage people to envision solving the world's biggest problems, the artist and game designer has maxed out his credit cards to create Paradice, a board game that teaches people to that they have the power to influence positive change in the world.

The tragedy around Sept. 11 was the catalyst for getting the game off the ground.

Flecked with gray, O'Neill's bearded face displayed a deep wisdom that comes with decades of experience and deep thinking.

"Since September 11, a lot of people got a wake-up call about other values beyond consumerism. They're doing much evaluating ...," he said.

Paradice, the first of nine games, encourages the player to develop a deeper awareness of life by examining a number of issues that O'Neill feels are affecting the outcome of today's world -- among them, nature, our spiritual connection to it, and how we respond to a situation that threatens it.

"The key is watching the flow of opportunity moving across the board. It's about the flow of power, and the choices we make," O'Neill said.

The game appeals to chess players, as well as people who love the environment.

"All of us play a game of balance every day in our lives. It creates a lot of discussion about people's value systems. It's an interactive portrait of living," he said.

Jennifer Zilliac, owner of Dreamelot Toys believes the most fundamental way to encourage interaction with life is to engage in expanding a child's active imagination at a young age. Make-believe for Zilliac is not defined by predetermined characters, but by providing children with toys that allow them to imagine any kind of scenario, she said.

The concrete walkway leading to her Palo Alto home studio is scalloped in gentle wave designs embedded with handmade ceramic shell "fossils" created by Zilliac and her husband. Sitting on a large purple exercise ball, the business-savvy 40 year-old brunette gave up a comfortable living as a technical writer to pursue her dream of giving children room to think and create through her line of dolls.

The mother of a young daughter, Zilliac became engaged in activities she thought would be beneficial through the teaching style of the Waldorf School, which emphasizes allowing children to work through situations and feelings through imaginative play.

"Kids who go to Waldorf schools don't watch television. They get outside and play -- they're interested in the seasons. They make their lunches at school."

Local doll makers hand stitch the dolls and their clothes, which come in a variety of hair textures, colors, skin tones and eye colors, made to order.

"All of my products stress natural materials, all for imaginative play. There are no predefined characters. The dolls have a very simple expression, and children can imagine any kind of feeling they want," she said.

Among her favorite dolls is the Silky Superhero.

"It's something boys can be comfortable with. Many toys out there are geared toward violence, but the Silky Superhero does things for good purposes, and has a loving kind of power that children find comforting and validating amid the bombardment of violent images often projected by today's superheroes," she said.

The androgynous doll, standing 16 inches tall, is topped with a mop of boucle mohair and sports a red silk cape. He can easily be transformed into a female superhero by purchasing a costume for girl dolls. Her daughter loves the dolls. "It can be very empowering for girls," she said.

The dolls are among 30 imaginative toys Zilliac sells -- from wooden trains and farm families to silk scarves that can be imagined into anything.

Toys that spark the imagination provide hours of simple pleasures - and will be lovingly remembered long into the adult years, Zilliac said.

Many people lovingly remember the so-called reversible dolls they played with as children. Based on story book characters, the dolls are like fairy tales come alive. Flip Red Riding Hood's cape over her head, turn her upside-down, and Grandma and the Wolf appear; Sleeping Beauty can be awakened with a kiss and the flip of a skirt. On the underside, she is smiling, and wide awake.

Their appeal is universal, Karpas said. Her dolls have loving homes all over the world. "I like giving them to kids, and I like when the dolls go to other countries, like Saudi Arabia," she said. A map on her Web site shows the countries where her dolls have homes. One place they still haven't traveled is Antarctica.

The 33 year-old Mountain View resident has made reversible dolls since she was 8. A former children's librarian who used reversible dolls at story time, she was inspired by a teacher who had children make stocking dolls for a class project.

The diminutive Karpas makes more than 360 dolls a year. She cuts the cloth patterns on her living room floor, a trail of triangular scraps of cloth lead to her sewing room and the library of floor-to-ceiling books. She still talks excitedly about her passion, and the pleasure she gets instilling awe and wonder in children. "I like sharing stories, and the doll by definition is the story," she said.

The dolls also create a bond with children, and have been used to coax stories from traumatized children.

"The good witch-bad witch is a favorite among psychologists," she said.

For those with wild imaginations, Karpas created the "Monster Under the Bed," a cuddly creature designed to fit under the bed springs. "Since only you know their name, you have power."

The faces if all of the dolls are waterproofed, "so you can kiss it as much as you want, and cry on it as much as you need to and it won't matter," she said.

Karpas' desire is to "create toys you can hug now, and that will survive to be handed down. They're based on classic stories, so they'll always have a story -- even after they're passed on."

Karpas' words had special resonance one day at The Playstore, an imaginative toy store on University Avenue. A visitor to the shop that afternoon would have seen 8-year-old Evan Powers sport a knight's helmet and sword. His older brother Nathaniel, 10, examined objects through a magnifying glass. Every year around the holidays, their mother, Melanie, brings the boys to the store to watch them play. Later, she'll return to purchase Christmas presents from the toys they interact with most.

"My children have attended three schools, and at all of them, teachers commented on their creativity. I believe these toys are part of it", she said. "Imaginative toys have helped their attention span, and improve fine motor development and spatial reasoning."

She loves the hand carved wooden families, which include a Plains Indian family complete with buffalo. "We would put a blue cloth in the back yard and it became a river. The kids would put rocks gathered from the yard around it, (creating an environment for the wooden family)." The feel of the wooden toys inspires a different kind of play, she said.

"These toys have a soul. My teddy bear still sits in my bedroom. It's not like things that blink - they don't require anything of the child. It's hard for a child to talk to a doll where you pull a string and it says the same six sentences."

Sue Dremann can be e-mailed at sdremann@paweekly.com

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