Stuffed toys can be art, right?

Night markets - the toy maker
Originally uploaded by deepwarren

I've been wandering the streets in Leung Prabang in Laos. It's one of the world's beautiful little secrets. Tranquil, relaxed, fabulous architecture.. perfect for a romantic /dirty weekend with that special other. And they have night markets, with a sprinkling of food, but mostly just handicrafts. All the scarves fisherman's pants, bags, more bags and bracelets, jewelry and Buddha's a person could want. Because the goods are sourced from outlying villages there is a lot of similarity in some of the stuff, but also lots of little differences.

You can buy stuffed toys made from old fabrics and bedspreads at a dozen different stores, but the range is slightly different and the pattern that the bunny or chook is made from differs. So when you see something quite different - it sticks out like the proverbial dogs balls.

Wandering the market on night 3 (yep, it's fun and market shopping is just my idea of good time), even when it's raining! We spotted this woman with her collection of misshapen toys, all made from basic fabrics (the stuff that other stalls where using as a base material for their bags) sitting next to one of the many stalls selling bedspreads was this woman with her wonderfully odd collection of stuffed toys. In the photo you can see the ones we didn't buy. I should have taken a photo before we started bargaining, but one moment you're looking at something, and next you involved in a limited but detailed discussion on price. With one mentally trying to work out what these thousands of kip mean at home. After too many zero's my brain turns off, and you just feel like it's all paper money. Not real, and one can just spend and spend and spend.

Anyway, the toys were weird, and loveable. And they seemed to be trying to say something about her (or whoever made them) with their 2 heads, and the dreaming of riding rhino's and everything just that touch wonky. It was maybe naive art, maybe just a local woman selling stuff for her children - but i liked it. It had the sense of dreams.