"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?" "Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real." "Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit. "Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt." "Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?" "It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand." - -The Velveteen Rabbit Margery Williams wrote these words in 1921, and they still resonate with readers today. I think the reason they are affecting is simply that they are true. Material objects may be transformed by our hand, our care, and our love just as we may be changed by material objects. This is how art works. This is what saves certain bits of the world we make from garbage heaps and incinerators. Objects can become embued with spirit and narrative. Play Things is an edition of 16 toys made from plush and plastic chosen for their personalities, their expressions, and their stories.