I find Material Culture very fascinating. The idea of a person having a deep connection with an object and soliciting it with emotive responsibilities. Humans innately interact with objects in this way by projecting our wishes and desires onto the things that surround us. I project into these objects below and force them to carry a indirect nostalgia. We connect all sorts of memories to objects even if they are not our own. For example someone say "my mom used to read Beatrix Potter stories to me all the time." Everytime you see a Beatrix Potter book you associate those images with the person. The feeling of that person gets left behind through those objects. A specific object they may never have touched becomes related because that is how our minds network information. Creating a mind map of everything that is related-things that we do not associate with other things lose rank. When you value something-does it have ties to more than one thing in your life?
The wooden cars were made by Peter when he was little. I love that he made them because many children get every single toy they ever own bought for them. When a child makes their own toys rather than an adult making the a toy with an idea of what the child needs-it's a very interesting development. The child takes it in their control to decide what they need for the use of play. An article I recently read from the Journal of Material Culture: The Material Culture of Children and Childhood discusses this idea well: download copy of pdf here
