Creatures

Creatures that move using electrical or mechanical engineering, constructed from used toys, household electronics and found objects like old gloves, teeth and coral

Creature history

I started making moving creatures from used toys and electronics in 1998 while at Colorado State University. I took used toys and evolved them into creatures that had their own spirit. At the time, programable microcontrollers like arduino were not available, so I used music boxes, gears and the sensors and microchips found in electronics. I hacked into and what I call piggy backed off the used microchips in order to create personalized movements, sounds and reactions for each creature. I developed a way to teach others how to do basic circuitry through an activity called Toy Take Apart. After a residency at the Walker Art Center I started working for the Science Museum of Minnesota as an artist in residence for the Playful Invention and Exploration (PIE) project in 2005. The PIE project was an NSF funded gathering of national museums and education centers like the Exploratorium and the MIT Media Lab. It was there that Toy Take Apart was shared with the group. Since then the activity has become a main feature of Maker Spaces, Tinker Spaces, and Maker Education. I stopped making the creatures in 2010, but plan on starting a second family in 2020.

Creature timeline

From 1998 until 2010 I created a series of animatronic creatures which I showed nationally

1998 - 2000

Oil Can Puppet Man

This is the first of the creature series. In 1998 I was in a lost wax bronze casting class. I started looking at the used toy bins in thrift stores because toys have a rich variety of textures that can be used to make molds off of and the material was inexpensive. I used this brown sticky victory wax to coat my stuffed animal pieces and that made it easy to stick the pieces together without the trouble of sewing. I loved the shapes and the crazy figures and animals that I was creating for the molds. They were flexible, but the wax made them sticky and look like chewed beef jerky. I cast the wax creatures with enthusiasm excited for the bronze versions to come, but when I broke open the molds and saw the creatures hard and bronze, my heart sank. I decided to go with using the stuffed animal parts and learned to sew because the wax was a problem. Oil Can Puppet Man survived being cast into a mold because I had placed a metal oil can in it’s face, and metal can’t be melted away in the molds we were doing. I turned the creature into a hand puppet by sewing the parts onto a glove, which is how Oil Can received his extended name. Oil Can Puppet Man is made out of a stuffed lion’s head, a blue carnival bear, an oil can and the feet from a My Little Pony fakie.

Boy Blue

Boy Blue was created from vinyl fabric, a dolls head, another doll’s moving eyes, and an altered music box. I hand made the body and covered over the dolls head with fabric to give it a featureless look that highlighted the eyes. The music was altered and was meant to sound slow and precarious. Boy Blue was the first music box creature which I created to look like an otherworldly baby. Something that is close enough to human, needing care and love like a human baby. Because this creature crossed over the uncanny valley, it became creepy, even though that was not my intent. So this is the only human-like creature in the family.

Dodo

Dodo is the first creature in the family to have a push button, lights, an altered microchip and motors. I created Dodo from these memories I had of baby birds being pushed out of their nests. When the red sore spot is pushed Dodo makes noise, with jerky movements and red blinking hands. Dodo reminds me of picking up the baby birds and this feeling of responsibility I suddenly had and didn’t want, just like the mother bird didn’t want either. Dodo is made from vinyl E.T. skin and assorted stuffed animal parts.

Pink Eyes

Pink Eyes is the second music box creature in the family, using a pull string to activate the music. I wanted to create an innocent penis-like creature that sounded like it was breaking when pried open, but played a sweet song as it protectively scrunched back up. The meaning of this creature is varied. Some of it is about shyness of one’s own sex, a feeling of being ashamed of masturbating, of being gendered and the responsibility of becoming a man. The creature wants to remain innocent, with awkward feelings of sexuality and to not grow up.

Fraidy Cat

Fraidy Cat contains some of the recycled victory wax dipped parts from my earlier creatures. A wind up off-center weight causes Fraidy Cat to spin and shake. This creature was inspired by a children’s book of a similar name I read many many times while sitting in the dunce chair in Catholic School. The main character was scared of riding a merry go round. That is why I made this creature shake while spinning in circles.

Lips

Lips is a toddler that is discovering pleasurable feelings while touching itself. Lips is the first creature to use a motion sensor to activate the noise and movement. To make Lips move, you have to pick it up and bang it down. I made this creature to express the idea of negative punishment on masturbation. I used doll thumbs for the arm ends so that the thumbs could be placed in the mouth. The legs of a favorite My Little Pony Gen 1 was used for the feet.

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Flying Horse

This creature was made from fabric dipped in victory wax. It was another survivor from an earlier experiment in lost wax bronze casting. In an attempt at preserving and covering the beef jerky like body, I wrapped it in leather that I hand dyed. My pet rat escaped one day and found this creature and chewed off parts of the leather. Flying Horse is a direct prototype for the large 26 foot metal and plastic covered public sculpture with the same name.

Bambi

Bambi was an early music box creature. No video

Elephant

Elephant has a sound sensor that activates sound and walking movement

2001 - 2004

Baby

Squeeze the middle and baby screams, eyes light up

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Buffalo Lion

Buffalo Lion is a small altered music box, and is made from an inside-out My Little Pony, and used stuffed animal fur.

Knuckles

I was training to be a boxer when I made this creature. It’s made with an altered music box that kinda twitches the fist-like head. It’s a centaur, which is supposed to be a hyper sexual being, quick to anger

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Mittens V1

This is Mittens version one, which came with a pleather red Barbie jacket not shown.

Knob

Knob was created from a stuffed animal that already had a long history. At a flea market I talked to a vendor and explained to him what I was looking for. He went into his camper and pulled out a stuffed animal dog, which he said traveled back and forth across the US with him for decades. His best friend. I told him what I was going to do with it and he thought it was a better second life for his buddy

Turtle

Turtle uses a light sensor to activate movement. Made from a lavender suede coat and used toys

Rat

Rat is based off of my pet rat Olive, which had breast cancer three times. I spent the money to get two removed, but the third time I couldn’t do it. The cancer grew into a large bright red lump which she tried to chew off. I couldn’t handle it and brought her in to be put asleep. I held her as her breathing became slower and slower and she died. This creature has a breathing and heart sound. You can change the speed of both with a dial.

2005 - 2008

Inside of Mole

The only professional video I have of the inside parts of a creature working

Mole

This creature was made from a carnival giraffe, hand made glass eyes, horse hair, and used toys. It’s meant to be a pig like oversized mole. The distance sensor in the nose as well as the shoulder switch activates random jumping, eye moving and snorting

Lonestar

The name Lonestar comes from the publishing company name I imagined having as a six year old. I thought the strange fish looked like a shooting star with it’s glow eyes. Lonestar is made from my mom’s wedding dress satin, glass marbles and used toys

Zebra Shrimp

Zebra Shrimp was created in honor of my dad’s mustache and my mom’s snoring. When turned over the creature shuts it eyes and starts snoring and breathing

Quid

I wanted to create a dancing on two legs hedgehog like creature

Worm

I used an old Lassie toy, coral for the nose nubs and an inside out doll’s eye socket for the eyes

Limpton

Made from an altered music box, used fabric, and some wooden grapes I found on the side of road

Narwhal

Push a button and Narwhal moves its arms, head and tail while a red light shines from its gills. Narwhal is made from old seal skin gloves, a Barbie satin dress, and used toy parts

2008 - 2010

Mouseteeth

Mouseteeth was inspired by the dead voles my cat would put on my doorstep. I felt bad for them and made a mouse with a back of bovine teeth

Mittens

Made from old boxing gloves and used toy parts, Mittens has a set of random responses and movements when activated by sound. Mittens is about surviving and adapting within a shrinking ecosystem

Cottonmouth

Cottonmouth has a sound sensor recorder that plays back the recordings with mouth movements. This creature was made to mimic the chatter and sometimes gossip back at gallery goers. It listens and randomly plays back what it has heard

Hornet

Made from hair, glass parts, and stuffed animals found in a house fire, Hornet moves its abdomen and stings using a vibrating glass stinger

Deartoy

Deartoy does a complicated set of random movements in response to touch and sound. Made with custom glass eyes, died cotton velvet, coral, and used toy parts

Dear

The smallest creature in the family, when Dear is pet on the head, a resistance sensor makes it vibrate and the eyes light up

Snipe

Made from an altered music box, my mom’s wedding dress satin, coral, plastic flowers, and teeth. Pull Snipe apart and hear it play a slow melody

Love Bird

A pull string vibrator moves this creature, with a snot sucker nose, coral stinger, and doll hands

Wolf

Wolf contains an am radio, a sound sensor and moving parts. Wolf is constructed out of burned toys found in house fire. The radio is to reach into the spirit world so the child that died from the fire can communicate with the living

Video of a series of sculptures

Caterpillar

Video interviews

Interview: From creatures to landscapes

In this interview with Matt Peiken for 3 Minute Egg, part one of three, I go into the process of making the creature sculptures and describe the intention of their motions. I like this interview because it leads into my transition into landscape sculptures, originally meant to be the backdrops of the creature sculptures.

Interview: Interactive toys by Anastasia Ward

Rocketboom field correspondent Chuck Olsen covers Anastasia Ward’s Interactive Sculpture for mnstories. This is one of the most watched videos of the process of making my creatures.

Written interviews

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Amanda Vail writes for mnartists

For several years now, Anastasia Ward has been taking her cue from Mary Shelley. She sits in her studio and under a lone lamp’s spotlight, upon a desk filled with bits of wire, motors, batteries, sketches, and tools, she recreates toys. Nearby sits a box overflowing with stuffed animals rescued from garage sales and Salvation Army stores, waiting for Ward to give them new life. She gathers them together for their textured, worn-out fur, for their small beady eyes, for their funny little noses. She pulls them apart and puts them back together turned inside-out and backwards, no longer recognizable as “My Little Ponies” and “Popples,” but something new and strange, somewhat monstrous and oddly endearing.
Ward’s creations are, without a doubt, initially unsettling; they simultaneously repulse and attract the viewer. If their strange hybridity was their only quality, the repulsion might win out. However, Ward has given them life, of a sort, through the inclusion of motors, music boxes, and springs. They jiggle, shuffle, squeak, and recoil; one of them even cries when the lights go out. Their names, such as “Blind Lion” or “Fraidy Cat,” inspire a kind of pity in the viewer. These are not monsters; they are creatures to be taken care of. They require interaction, maintenance and cuddling. Despite their awkward, unnatural appearances, they are still in need of love and attention.