Well, we used the term “toys” for post title purposes only. These pieces cost more that $10 000, and are more suited for exhibition purposes, than letting them be your kid’s pillow-pal. Imagined and created by Cathy A. McClure, these working “bots” were once cuddly toy robots, wrapped in vividly colored, soft furs, mimicking the sounds and movements of cats, dogs and other pets. Passing through the hands of this multi-medial artist and an accomplished metal designer, residents of toy-store shelves got stripped “down to the bone”, to the naked mechanics that made them move and sound like familiar animals. In stage two individual animals are encased in new, cast bronze skins that give them entirely new lives and fates. A finished animal is beautiful, as much as strange. It moves in an awkward way, weighted by heavy bronze, making hollow, almost, sounds with no echo. Now, now. They’re not scary – just strange in a way so familiar, that we seem to forget they were both imagined AND created.