Wind-Up Whimsy
Photography by Kay Canavino
Gina Kamentsky’s Mechanical Confections are types. “When I started in the 80s, we were still using
one-of-a-kind kinetic sculptures ranging from wind-up Ozen units to put sound in a toy,” she explains. “You
toys to comical automata, lamps, and motorized would pull a string, which powered a spring-wound
pieces. “Humor is really important,” she says. “I love motor driving a miniature record inside the box!”
old comics and animation from the 30s.” After branching out on her own as a freelance toy
Kamentsky started making art with found objects designer, she got into sculpture. She starts with an
more than 20 years ago. Walking around her neigh- idea about motion and progress, then finds objects
borhood in industrial South Boston, she’d pick up and forms that fit. She scours flea markets, yard
pieces from abandoned vehicles and take them sales, thrift stores, and eBay for raw materials, and
home to make small, toy-like objects. scavenges old toys, computers, and video games.
Growing up, Kamentsky’s scientist-inventor father Her life’s work will be on display until November at
was a big influence. “A typical weekend project the Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton, Mass
would be commandeering a toy, taking it apart, and Today, Kamentsky splits her artistic time between
supercharging it in some way. Our model train set sculpture and animation, and teaches interactive
was voice controlled; we had a model plane which information design at Northeastern University.
flew around the room dropping bombs.” Lately she’s interested in combining these favorite
After studying industrial design and film animation pastimes by exploring kinetic interfaces for operating
at Philadelphia College of Art (now the College of Art the menus on cheap DVD players, and tinkering
and Design), she went to work for Fisher-Price. She with Arduino open source electronics. Along with a
couldn’t believe she got paid to design toys — it was smattering of humor, of course. —Bruce Stewart
like a wonderful sort of grad school, as she learned
how to work in plastic and develop mechanical proto- >> Gina Kamentsky: ginakamentsky.com, pixeltoon.com
Make: 27
