SIBYLLE ENGSTROM

INTERVIEW

SIBYLLE ENGSTROM

Ostheimer’s director

Recently, we had the pleasure of having Sibylle Engstrom come from Germany to pay us a visit at the Grapat workshop. Sibylle is the current person leading our fellow toy-maker friends at Ostheimer. After showing her around our workshop and walking around the stunning vineyards at La Vinyeta, we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to sit down and talk about what we love most: childhood, toys and free play.

From the outside, we can appreciate your important role as a leader of a historic brand. But what’s your personal mission within the Ostheimer philosophy?

My mission – or the mission of the company actually, which is the important one– is to keep going, to believe that handmade toys make a big difference when we bring them into the world and also give them to children. Yes, to keep going and give them toys that show them a beautiful world, admiration and respect for the world. Also, to give them a chance to experience different characteristics of animals, of people’s archetypes, to nourish their inner life and to give them the possibility to feel the different characters and develop some empathy, because I think that’s something that’s very, very important for our future.

We are talking about a company that reaches and inspires thousands of people around the world, including us at Grapat. If you had to say something to all the mothers and fathers reading this, what would it be?

That’s a big thing to do. I would tell all the mothers and fathers to listen a lot to their children and to take things much slower with them than society does. Also, give them the possibility to discover, to pose their own questions and, also, to give them the chance to love the world first before they analyze and criticize it. Young children, when the turn 15, 16 or 17 years old, they will discover all the big problems that we left them in this world, but I think it’s very hard for them if you already start in kindergarten telling them they need to protect the sea because it’s already so dirty and that all the fish will die. What are we giving them? They first need to love the sea and the animals, or the cows in the countryside, before they have to see the many things we are doing wrong and the way we are destroying the world. Because then, they will have the power to fight to stop the process: to build the world up again, to protect it, you need to have a good picture in order to have the hope and the power to fight for something.

If you learn at the age of five about how hopeless everything is and how much destruction there is, you take away all the energy and the enthusiasm for the world out there, and you leave them hopeless. And so I think this is the most important part. Have the patience to let them love the world and maybe have some ideas about the world before you uncover them. Of course, they will become realistic at some point, and there will be a lot of sad things to discover then. But I think the first ten years, at least, maybe even more, should really be for strengthening them, showing them the good side of the world and give them love.

“to build the world up again, to protect it, you need to have a good picture in order to have the hope and the power to fight for something.”

And, on the other hand, if you could say something to the children, what message would you tell them?

Go out a lot. Get to know the world, really know it, by touching it, by loving it, by smelling it, by running through the fields and not just knowing those fields from your TV or your social media or your mobile phones or whatever it is. But rather, go experience it and get to know it yourself too, know what you can do in the world and dare to be imperfect.

And that is something very important because that’s the other message we give them all the time, that you can do things either right or wrong. And so everything is judged that way: “Oh, yeah, you did that well. That’s good. Oh, you did that wrong”. No, you have to think differently about that.
Why do we tell them that? Do we trust so little in the world and in them and their judgment that we won’t let them discover their own ideas about the world and their criticism? Maybe we need to listen to them more and leave them the freedom to admire things themselves.

What’s the most vivid memory of playtime that you have from when you were a kid?

I think it would be playing outside, playing Indians as a matter of fact. I love to be the Indian and I always had it clear that was the best one to be. I just loved it. When I go to any place and there are.. you know, rocks and trees and all that, I immediately think, “Oh, here you can put up your camp. There you can make a fire!”. I still have the same fantasies as I used to have as a child.

That is really the most wonderful thing, to have fantasies. I think that as well, about our toys, that they can inspire these fantasies, even if it’s not outdoors, but inner fantasies mostly, it makes them dream and imagine things. That really helps anyone to find solutions in the world and to feel inspired, I guess. I think that’s my favorite memory, being outside and climbing.

Do you think these memories have influenced the way your company designs stories?

Yes. Although I’m not the one who designs, my brother does and my aunt used to as well. I know that our design is at its best when they come from one’s deep experiences.

My brother always says: “If you have an intellectual idea, do that in that animal”. But for him, if he doesn’t get the inspiration from experiences, it won’t be a very powerful toy. You can tell, or he can tell at least, from our assortment which are toys that came from ideas he thought about and which came from experiences. He puts a lot of heart in there and this– what do you call it?–, this magic that you experience as a child with toys.

“My brother always says: ‹‹If you have an intellectual idea, do that in that animal››. But for him, if he doesn’t get the inspiration from experiences, it won’t be a very powerful toy.”

I think when people ask about a company, what draws people in or what they like,– it happens when people ask us– it’s very difficult to explain what it is, but they have something special or different. And I think that what you are saying now is a good way to explain this connection to an emotion or to something else. Like, sometimes a company can make a good toy and replicate what you are doing, but they can’t replicate that same thing, you can see it and you can feel it.

You can feel it. The same happens with Grapat. That’s the thing… many people are trying to imitate, but the spirit… you can’t imitate that. You can’t imitate it, thank goodness. Even if they try hard, they often copy the wording and everything, but you can’t feel the same thing, it’s empty. I think it’s this special thing, like when you had this campaign about the fire it was just about people. And others connect with it. It’s not about the little set that you made, it’s about the idea in the set and the spark that it sends around the world. That’s wonderful. Somehow, you have the gift to put that into a little box. But it’s the intention that you put in it, I think, mostly the reason why people love it so much. It’s not because of the shape.

That’s what people are longing for so much… Because there are so many empty things out there to entertain you or for your kids, but only for a short time. And it’s not moving them, it’s not changing them or shaping them or enriching their souls. This is what we really need to do because there is so much that is making life hollow. So we need to fill it up well, stock them up well before they go out in the world, I think.

This is also in relation to the noise and the silence, right?

Yeah, I always say that about our toys, too. It’s not that kids walk a cow over the carpet. They’re not on the carpet and they are not in your living room at that moment. They are in the fields or in the meadow and the cow is there with them or it’s in the stable. They have all the imagination that grownups lack, usually, when they decoratively put it on a nice spot in their apartment. But if a kid looks at it, they see a lot of different things there. It’s coming alive, connecting them with something and they are totally in a different place. They’re not in your living room anymore. And that’s, I think, what they need most.

What feeling or sensation makes you feel most at home when you cross the door?

Quietness. Peace. And also, when I can hear myself think. If you are amidst other people or out there and tending to things that need to be done in the company or wherever else, you are focused on those things, your concentration is there. And later, when it’s quiet, you can reflect on what it did to you and what you do with it and, yeah, sort out a little bit.

So I think of it as if taking a breath, taking things in and giving out, it’s something that’s very important to me. Otherwise, I get exhausted. It doesn’t usually happen when I go to our company as it’s very inspiring, but then I also need to have that quiet time. In the evening, at the weekend.. I don’t need a lot of activity then. I’m quite content and busy inside home.

Do you think the way you build your safe space, your home, is reflected in the way you create? Or in other words, do you play or what do you play with?

I think I play a lot. I have many things in my home on the shelves, on the windowsills, that create beautiful pictures inside of me. So I think I am playing then. And those also help me to get away from other things, like if I’m too tired to vacuum, clean or something like that, because then I have nice things to look at I feel fine.

There are moments to do the cleaning and other chores, but I need these little moments and pieces of beauty and of getting away, maybe getting into fantasy worlds as I was just talking about. That, I think, is something kids also need. It’s nice. I like that.

Do you think beauty is a thing to teach kids?

It’s important. Yes, very much, I think you can teach them, because I think we are becoming so numb to the ugliness.

If you walk across the toy fair and take a moment to consciously think, “What do we want to tell children with this or that toy?”. What you se is shocking. Why do we want them to have monsters and awful things? If they had not become numb inside so early, it would be shocking to them. Why would we want that to happen?

Why not give them something to feel what’s beautiful or healthy instead of what’s distorted and often erroneous? I wonder, why do you put up an activity scene with little figures that have really ugly faces as if they didn’t take doing them seriously? Why do you do it? Just for convention? And maybe, to make fun of Christmas?

And then, why do it? Why not choose another way of having a party that day? Why take the meaning out of things and make an erroneous statement and teach kids at the earliest age not to take things seriously and not to ask themselves what it is, what is it about?

Maybe a lot of adults have grown up without this depth we were talking about.

And that’s okay. I’m not saying everybody has to have deep feelings about Christmas. If they don’t, it’s okay.

But why teach children not to take it seriously and not to have deep feelings about it? Then, give them another thing that they can have honest and beautiful feelings about, something to admire.

I think that is something we can really teach them about, and we can give them a feeling for colors, for harmonious colors too instead of the more radical and actually ugly ones, which is what we often do. I think that’s pretty sad and I don’t know what it’s supposed to be good for. I really don’t see the benefit of it.

What toy do you consider indispensable in a home?

Well, oh. That’s a difficult question. I think something indispensable would be something to love, whether if that is a plushie or some dolls or maybe a car, a beautiful car. But that will be something that you connect to and that you really love and want to protect. I think that’s so important for every child, to have something special that is respected by their environment too.

So I can’t answer this or that, because it depends very much on a child. But I think it’s important to allow them to connect to something. And nowadays, there is often so much in the room that they can’t connect to anything. They go like: “Next thing. What’s exciting? I need some entertainment!”, so they don’t create an inner connection. I think that’s very sad and also critical for how it affects you when you grow up, what it does to you.

So, I think this indispensable object can be something other than a toy. It can just be a stick?

“I think something indispensable would be something to love, whether if that is a plushie or some dolls or maybe a car, a beautiful car. (…) I think that’s so important for every child, to have something special that is respected by their environment too.”

We wanted to know which is your favorite animal.

Oh, that’s so difficult. This is so difficult. Oh, that’s like when people ask “what’s your favorite book?”. There’s so many wonderful books and so many wonderful animals…

So, instead, the one that connects the most to your inner child.

To my childhood, you mean? Yeah. I think I have a strong connection to dogs. I like the way they connect and the way they try to sense our intentions: what do you feel, do you feel them, do you see them? It’s a strong connection. I really like that.

I have a cat now, for the first time in my life. I had always been a dog person. But I think she’s half-dog because she talks to me a lot and reacts to everything. Some people say that they’re not sure how I learned how to speak cat, because we have a lot of conversations, which is not very usual!

Amidst a few warm laughs, shared ideas and more anecdotes, our conversation naturally wrapped up. Needless to say, we would have loved to stay for many more hours listening to the wise words and soothing voice of Sibylle! As she returns to Germany, we bid her farewell, for now! We hope you found her insights as inspiring and thought-provoking as we did.